{Sticky Pear & Ginger Cake}

I've been gone for a while, during that time a lot has happened, my smallest pea turned three and has been in hospital (its all good now) we've been to stay on a farm for a week and have cemented our destiny to own land and have animals and veges a gogo, oh and along the way I turned 40.  Yup 40 and its no biggie, well not to me anyway, 40's a great place to be, my mum never made it out of her 20's so 40 is just plain fab. 

I did plan to make myself a cake but when it came to the crunch collecting eggs and wandering around the farm stalking following the chickens on their adventures, the glee filled giggles from my boys and just plain old gazing at the amazing view won out over slaving over a cake, its my birthday and i'll not bake if i want to.  

I did however pack a slab of this karen martini sticky ginger and pear cake that we had left over, on the night of my birthday and after a delicious thai roasted chicken (chicken not supplied by farm!)we heated it up in the oven and ate it with lashings of cream by candlelight.  Happy birthday me. 

...top
80g butter
110g brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
125g glace ginger, sliced
2 pears, peeled and finely sliced

...cake
220g golden syrup
170g sour cream
100g brown sugar
2 eggs
280g butter, melted
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1/2 lemon, zest finely grated
90g plain flour
130g self-raising flour
40g semolina
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder

pouring cream, to serve

Preheat oven to fan-forced 180 (200 conventional). Line the bottom of a 26cm tin with baking paper.

To make topping, melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir in brown sugar and salt until combined. Pour mixture into your tin and spread evenly. Arrange ginger and pear pieces on top, make it a bit pretty.

For cake batter, whisk together golden syrup, sour cream, brown sugar and eggs. Add melted butter and whisk to combine. Add grated ginger and lemon zest and stir well.

In a separate bowl, sift flours, semolina, ground ginger, salt and baking powder together and then fold through the golden syrup mixture.

Pour batter into tin, over the topping. Tap tin to remove air bubbles. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Remove from oven, place on a rack and allow cake to cool in tin.

To serve, invert cake onto platter and serve with cream.