sunday morning sleepover cake

This past Sunday morning I woke early thinking about what to make the gaggle of girls sleeping in Lula's room. The past few weekends we have been in a pancake rut. I thought about making an apple ginger cake but didn't have apples. After rummaging around I came up with a few pears and a whole lot of mint and basil left from last week's shoot. The combination of basil and pear sounded good to me, so I set out to make a cake. When the girls finally staggered out of Lula's room around noon the cake was waiting. I brewed them some  fresh mint tea and suddenly it was a perfect non-pancake breakfast for a perfectly gorgeous Sunday.

Basil Pear Cake

2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup of light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1 teaspoon of ground ginger

12-15 large basil leaves roughly torn

1/2 stick of  softened butter 

2  pears 

2 tablespoons heavy cream

2 eggs

Sift the first 6 ingredients together in a mixing bowl.

Add butter, grated pears, torn basil leaves, heavy cream and eggs. ( I grated one pear and used a mandolin on the other to change up the texture. Set aside 1/4 of the second pear to mandolin some slices for the top of the cake )

Mix for a minute by hand.

Turn the batter into a well greased and floured baking pan. I used a 7 inch round. Shave the remaining quarter of pear on the top of the cake.

Bake for 45 minutes at 350.