These two recipes are perfect for Christmas celebrations. The cake is delicately flavoured with orange and chocolate, and has a hint of vanilla. The pears are poached in a ginger and honey syrup flavoured with rosemary and bay.
The recipes are from one of my favourite festive books ‘The Christmas House’ by Alastair Hendy who I know and admire both as a cook and food writer and photographer. In fact it was Alastair that many years ago now, encouraged me to pick up a camera and start taking photos.
Makes 12 pieces
Ingredients
240g unsalted butter
420g caster sugar
6 medium eggs, separated
170g flour, sifted with 2 tsps of baking powder
80g finely ground toasted hazelnuts
grated zest of one orange
1 tsps vanilla extract
2 tablespoons Cointreau
120 mls of milk
2 tsps of cinnamon powder
3 tbsp cocoa powder
vanilla icing sugar, to dust
Method
Preheat the oven to 180° C, Gas mark 4
Beat the butter until smooth and pale, then slowly add the sugar. Continue to beat the mixture until it is light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time. Add the orange zest, vanilla extract and liqueur and mix well. Stir in a spoonful of flour and baking powder, and stir in a little milk. Continue until all the flour is incorporated, adding a little more milk to the mixture if it becomes too stiff. Stir in the toasted ground hazelnuts. Whisk the egg whites until the soft peak stage and then fold into the cake batter.
Grease a bundt tin with melted butter and dust well with flour. Scoop about 2/3 of the cake mixture into the tin. Mix the remaining batter with the cocoa and cinnamon and then dollop spoonfuls on top of the mixture in the tin. Swirl the cocoa and cinnamon cake mixture through the rest of the cake .
Bake at 180° C/Gas mark 4 for one hour or until a skewer comes out clean. Best to check it after 50 minutes.
Once cooled, loosen around the edges of the bundt tin with the tip of a knife and turnout. Dust with icing sugar.
If you have any leftover cake, portion it up and store in the freezer. It freezes well.
Honey and ginger pears in brandy
Serve 6
Ingredients
6 small pairs
4 tbsp clear honey
4 tbsp brown sugar
One strip each orange and lemon peel
juice of half a lemon
4 tbsp of stem ginger syrup
two sprigs of rosemary
2 bay leaves
300 mls of brandy
Method
Peel the pears, retaining the stems. Put the honey, sugar, orange and lemon peel, lemon juice and pears into a saucepan in which the pairs will fit snuggly. Add enough water to just cover. Bring to the boil and then very gently simmer until tender (about 40 mins). Pack the pairs into a large jar with a lid, slipping in the rosemary sprigs and bay leaves.
Reduce pear’s poaching syrup by half, allow it to cool completely, then stir in the brandy and stem ginger syrup. Poured it into the jar over the pairs, to cover. Seal and refrigerate until required.
