Pear Cake with a Caramel Sauce

As the weather is getting chillier {it already snowed and it's only October..!}, I'm starting to crave warmth and coziness... I'm still making raw cakes like crazy, but once in a while I just need something to warm me up through and through. And the smell of a sweetly spiced cake baking away in the oven is what ultimate comfort dreams are made of.

I also happened to have come across an extremely gorgeous pear at the shop a little while back. Pardon me for saying it, but despite the fact that I'm a total fruit-lover, pears do not usually come first on my list of fruit to get... Sometimes I love them, but usually I skip. But, when I saw this pear, I couldn't pass. It sat there in the aisle, sculpture-like, green & teal-shaded leaf on a branch and all... and I just knew I had to make room for it in my cart and give it a home.

Once home though, I couldn't bring myself to slice into it. Call me weird, but sometimes I get visually captivated by shapes, colors, textures. This beautiful bosc pear was just too pretty to slice up. So it just graced the shelf of my fridge for a while and I admired it for weeks. Yep. Weeks. That's how long it took me to decide what to make with it.

Ok, I can't believe I just spent two paragraphs talking about a pear.. Back to scheduled programming... this cake. I decided to make a pear cake. And before I knew it it was coated in caramel. And it was most certainly cozy and delicious {and sweet -- heed my warning. Skip or go light on the sauce if you're not a fan of sweet cake}. The joke is that I only had to use 1 pear after all that and I had two, so the pear that inspired the cake still remains intact... And now I'll have to figure out another thing to make with it instead :)

I chose to use gluten-free oats for this cake as the flour base because I wanted to make something quick and simple this time around. I'm also experimenting more with oats at the moment, so was curious how the cake would turn out {<< delicious and moist is how}. But I know some of you don't or can't have oats. So if you're one of those people, you can use half of this recipe as a base for the cake with pears folded in instead of the raspberries and rhubarb. You're welcome ;)

I also decided to keep this cake oil-free. Honestly it didn't need it at all. I don't like using a lot of oil in baking when possible, but I find it does add a good amount of moisture and keeps the cakes from drying out. In this case though it was completely unnecessary -- the cake came out nice and moist and remained that way for days. I did use cashew butter in the caramel sauce because I love this caramel sauce recipe so much. But if you want to keep the recipe entirely fat-free, I'm including a simpler caramel sauce alternative as well.

Lastly, no, your eyes were not deceiving you -- this cake is indeed small. I chose to make it in my new 6-cup bundt pan. I've been making so much dessert lately that I've decided to downsize all my baking pans -- so I can make more interesting things and not feel overwhelmed by "cake that must be finished" staring you in the face every time you open the fridge... I've already been doing this with my raw cakes and tarts forever {using 6" and 7" pans}, so when I came across this 6-cup bundt pan at the shop it made a lot of sense to get it. I love the shape of bundt cakes in general -- they're always elegant, even when "undressed", but the other pan I have --  the 12-cup -- is just too massive {unless I'm baking for a special occasion}. I am quite fond of this smaller pan lately -- less ingredients and perfect small-sized cakes make a lot of sense to me these days.

If you want to make a larger cake though, double the ingredients and increase the baking time a little longer {keep testing with a skewer to see if it comes out dry in the center -- I'm guesstimating about an extra 10-15 mins. Just keep an eye so it doesn't burn}. You can also skip the bundt shape and just make this cake in any other pan. In fact, I've been thinking that this cake would work great as a sheet cake with the caramel sauce as frosting on top... But if you wanted to make it in a small bundt, this is the pan I use most nowadays and it works great.

Enjoy it! And let me know if you have any suggestions for another pear dessert in the comments ;) -- I'm thinking a cheesecake perhaps...

Pear Cake with a Caramel Sauce

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★★★★★ 5 from 2 reviews

• Author: Audrey @ Unconventional Baker
• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 1 hour
• Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
• Yield: 1 small bundt cake {8 servings}
• Category: Cake
• Method: Baked
• Cuisine: Dessert

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Description

A sweet, moist gluten-free pear cake topped with vegan cashew butter based caramel sauce.

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Ingredients

Cake:

• 1 ½ cups gluten-free quick oats
• 2 tbsp tapioca starch
• ¾ cup applesauce
• ¾ cup maple syrup {or agave, coconut nectar, brown rice syrup, etc.}
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• ¼ tsp espresso powder {optional, but adds an amazing flavor -- doesn't taste like coffee in this cake}
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• spices: 1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, ⅛ teaspoon cloves and allspice
• dash of salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 pear, chopped

Caramel Sauce: {*See notes for alternative sauce}

• ½ cup soft dates, pitted {I recommend medjool for smoothest results}
• 2 tbsp cashew butter {or coconut butter/manna for a nut-free version}
• ¼ cup non-dairy milk {I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk}, at room temp
• dash of salt
• ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
• ½ tsp espresso powder {optional. Add more vanilla if omitting}
• 1 tsp carob powder

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Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a 6-cup bundt pan and set aside {oil as needed or use a good non-stick pan}.
2. Place oats and tapioca into a food processor and process into a flour. Add all remaining cake ingredients, except pear, and process until a smooth batter forms. Add the pears and pulse a few times to fold them into the batter.
3. Transfer the mixture into the cake pan and smooth out the batter to even it out. Bake in a preheated oven for approximately 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out dry. Cool cake on a cooling rack. {note: when you have it warm out of the oven it'll seem very moist and spongy, so I recommend letting it cool completely first}.
4. While the cake is baking, prepare the caramel sauce by placing all ingredients in a blender and processing until your caramel reaches a desired consistency {add a bit more liquid as needed if you prefer it to be runnier}. Serve the cake warm or chilled, topped with caramel sauce. Enjoy!

Notes

Alternative Caramel Sauce Ingredients:
½ cup soft dates, pitted {I recommend medjool for smoothest results}
⅓ cup water or non-dairy milk {use more liquid as needed until you reach the consistency you like}
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
dash of salt
1 teaspoon carob powder
½ teaspoon espresso powder {optional}