Vegan Spicy & Caramel Pear Upside Down Cake

Vegan Spicy & Caramel Pear Upside Down Cake

Hi, Shivaay, thanks for your inspiration of the upside down cake! That gives me an idea to make my upside cake for today’s recipe! 🙂

But I like to turn it into a vegan cake, here is how it come out!

Firstly, I sprinkle some brown sugar all over the cake pan bottom and pop few tablespoons of extra virgin coconut oil over it, then, melt it in the preheat oven to make a nice caramel sauce.

The next step, I prepare few well-ripened  William pears, quartered it and put on the caramel sauce. Then follow my vegan sponge cake batter, I test out this cake recipe for few times secretly. Do you know why? If I failed my cake and got caught by my hubby, he said that I just waste time and money. That’s why I need to test any new recipe quietly and secretly without any his notice. If it is bad, I just destroy it without any evidence to chase, but, if it is surprisingly good, I will show it up to him, of course! 🙂

The impress of this sponge batter hasn’t any vegan butter, but only the mixture of the oil and water, it gives the cake more moist and soft, but not heavy. And I like the taste of molasses sugar so much, same as usual, it gives the cake full of rich flavour. The other things that I add: the apple cider vinegar and a bit of bicarbonate of soda, it also gives the cake more airy and spongy. Also, all the spicy brings out the cake to extremely appetizing.

Vegan Spicy & Caramel Pear Upside Down Cake

Ingredient:   (8″ baking tin)

For the caramel and topping: 

• 80g Raw unrefined brown sugar
• 20g Organic coconut oil

Method: 

1. Preheat the oven to 375ºF/190ºC/170ºC (fan oven), or gas mark 5.
2. Sprinkle the brown sugar all over the bottom of a lined and greased baking tin.
3. Put into the oven to let the sugar and oil until melted. Set aside.

For the Vanilla sponge cake: 

• 4 to 5 Williams Pears, peeled, cored, and quartered
• Few dashes Lemon juice
• 100ml Vegetable oil
• 250ml Water
• 1/2 Lemon, zest only
• 80g Molasses Sugar
• 1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
• 2 tsp Vanilla extract
• 230g Self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp Baking powder
• 1/4 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp Ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp Ground nutmeg
• !/4 tsp Mixed spices

Method: 

1. Arrange the quartered pear on the melted caramel sauce evenly, place the cut side upwards, sprinkle with few dashes lemon juice.
2. Measure all the rest of the ingredients in order and place in a large mixing bowl, use a handheld whisk to mix all smooth and well incorporated. Let it rest for 15 minutes.
3. Pour the cake batter all over the pears and slightly tap the baking tin on the table for few times.
4. Bake for around 35 to 40 minutes until cooked and golden brown.
5. Open the oven door and let the cake cool down in the oven naturally for 10 minutes.
6. Remove the cake from the oven, and turn upside down on a serving plate.

Note: 

• If you don’t like spicy, skip all the spicy and leave it plain with vanilla extract only.
• Not only the pears you can use, all the other fruits, like apple, pineapple, peach or plum will make the good result.
• This vegan cake batter will be a bit runnier than the normal batter, it is fine and normal for a vegan cake.