Pear And Mincemeat Crumble Cake

Sometimes you just have to give crazy ideas a try. Crazy ideas like....say... a vanilla cake with pear and mincemeat. I mean.... who puts mincemeat in a cake? Tarts, sure. Pie, yeah, of course. But cake? I don't know. Seems a little sketchy. 

Here's the thing. It's not sketchy. At all. It's brilliant. 

I'm the last one to line up when someone says "mincemeat" is the treat. Um...mincemeat is not really a treat. It's something we eat because it's Christmas time. That's it. 

But, put a few spoonfuls in a cake and *voila* NOW its a treat. 

A tasty, tasty pear cake with just enough spicy mincemeat to make things interesting. 

Sign me up. 

Pear And Mincemeat Crumble Cake

Ingredients

Pear Filling

5 medium pears, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces

2 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp water

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

Cake

1 cup butter, room temp

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

5 eggs

1 3/4 cup flour

pinch salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 cup almond flour (ground almonds)

1/2 cup mincemeat

Crumble

1/3 cup cake batter (reserved from above)

1/2 cup flour

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 (yes, 325, not 350). Lightly spray a 12 inch tart pan with cooking spray, set aside. 

Prepare pears - place pears and sugar and water in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat about 10 minutes, until just tender, stirring every so often. Once it is cooked there shouldn't be any juices - if there are then simply drain them from the pan. Stir in the cinnamon and nutmeg. 

Set aside to cool. 

Prepare cake - In a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter, sugar and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well combined. 

Add in the flour, salt, and baking powder. Beat until no flour streaks remain.

Fold in the almond flour with a spatula. 

Prepare crumble - Remove 1/3 of a cup of the batter to another bowl. Using a fork, blend in the 1/2 cup of flour until mixture resembles crumbs. 

Assemble cake - Spoon half of the cake batter into the prepared pan. Spoon half of the pear filling over the cake, then spoon half of the mincemeat over that. 

Repeat the layers again - batter, pears, mincemeat. 

Sprinkle the crumble topping over the cake.

Bake in prepared oven for about an hour - can take up to an hour and 10 minutes. A toothpick inserted near the center should come out clean and top should be golden brown. 

Remove from heat to a wire rack for 10 minutes. Then remove the tart pan and let cool completely. 

Can be served warm, room temp, or chilled. 

A couple of notes. You can bake this in a 9 inch springform pan if you want a higher, denser cake. You will just have to watch your cooking time: it will be about an hour and a half and you will want to cover with tinfoil at the one hour mark to prevent it from getting too dark on top. 

I have baked it in a 10 inch tart pan and it works very well too. You just have to place it on a pizza pan to catch spillover. (It rises up very well and in a 10 inch pan you will have spillover!) I simply cut the spillover off with a serrated knife while it was cooling on the wire rack and it was perfectly fine!

**Pears + Mincemeat = Perfect Fall Dessert**

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