Pear Almond Cake served with Rooibos Greek Yoghurt

The classic combination of pear and almond makes this tart the perfect teatime treat or dessert. This recipe is easy and delicious when pears are in season as they create the sweet soft filling.

This recipe works for a 20cm springform as a whole cake, or make 6 single tarts in a giant muffin silicon pan. It’s delicious served with real thick Greek yoghurt, which is thicker than normal yoghurt. For this recipe we used homemade yoghurt with a subtle rooibos flavour which was strained to make it even thicker. Strained yoghurt becomes Greek yoghurt and the creamy soft texture and slightly tangy yoghurt flavour with rooibos pairs deliciously with the sweet tart.

You don’t have to stock up on almond flour for baking: simply grind 100 gram of raw almonds in your blender for almond flour. The narrow base OmniBlend jugs are suited for grinding nuts and seeds, making it easy to grind fresh flours at home. Similar for the icing sugar: simply blend some standard white sugar for a fine icing sugar that you can dust on top of the tarts. Use a small sieve to create an even, light sprinkle.

Ingredients:

• 125g butter or baking margarine, room temperature
• 110g white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 50g cake flour
• 100g almond flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 2 pears, peeled, cored, each pear cut into slices
• 50g almond flakes, roasted for 8-10 min at 170C
• Icing sugar

Method:

Preheat oven to 190C.

Grease a 20cm springform pan, and line with baking paper or grease the 6 moulds of the muffin pan (not the standard small muffin size, for the tarts in the pictures we used the giant muffin pan).

Blitz almonds in your blender to create almond flour. Blend just long enough grind it into a flour, without over processing.

Add butter and sugar to a bowl, and beat with an electric mixer till light and fluffy.

Add 1 egg, and beat into the mixture until well incorporated. Add the other egg, and beat again until incorporated.

Sift the cake flour and baking powder over the bowl, and add in the almond flour. Fold in carefully with a spatula until combined.

Spoon the batter into the pan, and layer the pear slices on top.

Bake for 35-40 minutes. Keep an eye on it as oven temperatures may vary.

Remove from the oven, and leave to cool.

For serving, sprinkle with the flaked toasted almonds and a dusting of icing sugar.

Find the recipe for homemade yoghurt here. To add rooibos flavour to yoghurt, simply add a rooibos tea bag to a liter of milk when heating the milk. Remove the teabag before adding the yoghurt cultures, and then culture the yoghurt. To strain the yoghurt, simply place a cheese cloth or fine kitchen towel over a sieve and place the sieve over a bowl. Pour the yoghurt onto the cloth, cover, and place in the fridge. It’ll take a few hours to thicken.