Pear and Almond Olive Oil Cake
This rich, decadent Pear and Almond Olive Oil Cake has an almost creamy crumb thanks to the addition of almond paste and tender pears. It makes an elegant dessert or brunch item, but works perfectly for snacking, too!
Olive Oil Cakes, a love letter
Olive oil cakes are all the rage, and have been on the forefront of winter dessert food trends for years. I know this because I have A) enjoyed many slices of olive oil cake and B) have created many recipes for them, before I knew how to photograph food or run a blog. In fact, one of the very first recipes I tested and tried to photograph when I did start Bread & Basil was for an olive oil cake, but those photos never turned out well enough for me to want to share.
Now that I’ve been working on food photography for about a year, I’m happy to say I am confident in sharing these photos and this delicious and easy recipe for Pear and Almond Olive Oil Cake. This recipe was inspired by the fact that I had leftover almond paste from making my friend Ari at Well Seasoned Studio’s incredible Italian Rainbow Cookies for the holidays. We also had some pears lying around that just didn’t want to get ripe. My preference for eating a plain pear is that it’s nice and soft, but a firm-yet-still-sweet pear is perfect for baking.
Pears, the starring player
The key to making the pears really integrate with the cake and shine in the best way possible is to slice them very thin and lightly coat them in flour before layering into the batter. Even hard pears are still quite wet, so the flour may look lumpy or sticky as you coat the fruit. Just try to do it as evenly as possible and shake off any excess to avoid clumps of plain flour in the finished cake and you’ll be good to go.
The olive oil: go for quality
Here’s the part where I tell you to use “good olive oil.” What does that really mean? I want you to use an olive oil that has a distinct flavor that you like, not something that could pass for a neutral oil. Our goal is to really taste the oil’s flavor in the final cake, so my preference is to go with something bold and peppery. This doesn’t have to mean your most expensive oil—I used the Spanish Olive Oil from Trader Joe’s and it works well here.
To me, this Pear and Almond Olive Oil Cake feels like a really simple baking project that would immediately impress anyone you gave it to, with its delicate and moist crumb, sweet almond notes and buttery pears layered all throughout. Olive oil loaf cakes usually travel well due to their density and compactness, but I won’t blame you if you keep the whole thing to yourself.
Pear and Almond Olive Oil Cake
Ingredients
- 2 large, firm pears, peeled and sliced very thin with seeds removed (about 400g pear slices)
- 6 ounces (176 g) almond paste (not marzipan)
- 2 large eggs (110 g)
- 3/4 cup (179 g) dark brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 cup (85 g) whole milk yogurt
- 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon (106 g) extra virgin olive oil, plus additional for greasing pan
- 1 1/2 cups (176 g) all purpose flour, plus 2 additional tablespoons
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9 inch by 5 inch loaf pan with butter or oil and line with a strip of parchment paper so that you have overhang on the short sides to help you lift the cake out of the pan (see above photos).
- Reserve 3-4 of the prettiest pear slices to lay on top of the cake and set aside. Coat the remaining pear slices in 2 tablespoons of flour, removing any excess lumps by gently shaking or brushing the slices. You want a thin coat of flour on each piece.
- In a large bowl, beat almond paste with an electric mixer until it is broken up and no longer lumpy. Add eggs, brown sugar, yogurt, and 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil, beating well to combine. Set aside.
- Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir into wet mixture until just combined and no dry streaks of flour remain.
- Pour 1/3 of the batter into the prepared pan, then add one layer of pear slices, slightly overlapping and pressing them gently into the batter. Add another 1/3 of the batter and repeat with remaining floured pear slices. Add the last 1/3 of the batter, and gently lay your reserved decorative pear slices on top of the batter.
- Bake cake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the very center comes out clean, rotating halfway through, about one hour. The speed of baking does somewhat depend on how much moisture your pears contain, so start checking the cake after 50 minutes but expect it to take up to one hour and ten minutes to fully bake.
- Remove cake from the oven and cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then gently lift cake out of the pan and cool on a rack completely before serving.
Notes:
This cake can be served at room temperature, warm, or cold, and keeps three days on the counter if covered airtight.
