Poached Pears and Mix Berries Sour Cream Butter Cake

(serves 10-12)

Adapted from Bourke St Bakery Cookbook

So i haven't ventured out of my repertoire of baked goods for awhile now so it's always good to be asked to do something for someone, e.g. bake a birthday cake for a 9 year old :) This task is made infinitely more exciting when you are told you have access to the Bourke St Bakery Cookbook!!! Apparently i was the most excited my man has ever seen me when he told me about this ~ somewhat concerning but maybe not surprising, but just one more thing to love about him! :) This is a soft and fluffy, but just dense enough butter cake with a refreshing mix of fruit layered in - delicious!!

Prep time: 25min

Cooking time: 50-60min

Ingredients:

3 large pears

2-3 star anise

2 tsp vanilla essence

1 cinnamon stick

200g butter, softened

1 1/2 C sugar + 1/4 C (for poaching syrup)

2 tsp vanilla essence

3 eggs

150mL sour cream

1 1/2 C self-raising flour

1 punnet raspberries

1 punnet blueberries

icing sugar, to dust on top
Special equipment: 20cm springform cake tin

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C and grease the cake tin with butter.

2. Peel and cut the pears into bite-size pieces.

3. Bring a pot of water to the boil, with enough water to cover all the pears. Add 1/4 C sugar, star anise, cinnamon stick and 1 tsp vanilla essence (or whatever else you want to flavour the pears with).

4. Add the pears and poach for 15-20min until soft. You can keep them cooking whilst preparing the cake, and just drain them from the juice before placing them on the cake batter.

5. Meanwhile, whip the butter and the 1 1/2 C sugar together until pale and creamy. Add in 1 tsp vanilla essence and then beat in one egg at a time, making sure the whole egg is combined before adding the next one in. 

6. Gently fold the sour cream mixture in 2 batches with a spatula, then fold in the flour in 2 batches until just combined. 

NB. Avoid over-mixing as this may result in the cake being more stiff.

6. Decorate with the poached pears, raspberries and blueberries. 

NB. The fruit will sink to different degrees, so it's good to spread it out amongst the cake, this way every slice should have some fruit!

7. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean in the middle.

8. Let it rest for 5-10 minutes, then cool on a cooling rack.

9. Dust with icing sugar and decorate with fresh fruit and serve the remaining fruit on the side!