Brown Butter Cake with Caramelised Pear | Cook with Curtis Stone | Coles

We all love classic shortbread, but I have something even better. It's my

brown

butter

cake

. Browning the

butter

first adds an extra layer of nutty flavor to the

cake

, which is perfect with

pear

s. Now before you turn on the oven, make sure the rack is in the center. This helps the cake

cook

evenly as the heat actually circulates. Then preheat it to 180 Celsius, or 160   if you are using a fan oven. First of all, take your butter, put your skillet over medium heat, I'm using a non-stick one like this, and add your butter. You are going to

cook

it for about four or five minutes.

You will get lots of bubbles on top and a beautiful golden

brown

color on the bottom. Once the foam disap

pear

s, you will see the melted butter turn a deep golden brown color. Pour the browned butter into a heatproof bowl and then let it cool until lukewarm. Now you are ready to make the cake. Start with the dry ingredients in a bowl. So we have our flour, a cup and a quarter to be precise. A cup of sugar and a little salt. A little baking powder. You can sift it if you really want, but all I do is take a whisk and beat them together so they are really well combined.

Okay, we have our dry ingredients. Now let's mix our wet ingredients. First, the browned butter, then a cup of milk, two whole eggs, a little vanilla, and a little lemon zest. Go ahead and grate it right there. Alright guys, this part is super simple. You pour the flour mixture into the butter mixture and beat it until you have a nice soft dough. Don't overwork it. We don't want to exercise that gluten and turn it into a tough cake. We want a nice and tender cake. Take a cup of that dough and put it in a small bowl here.

And then what we're going to do is take about a tablespoon and a half of flour, add it and whisk. The reason we do this is that we are making a slightly thicker dough. And this way you will protect the creamy center of the cake. Take your whisk, take two more egg yolks and then add them to the rest of the dough here. That's what gives it that beautiful custard-like consistency. But if you did it all, the pears would sink. Next we add our pears, they will oxidize so once you peel them, throw them in as quickly as you can because you don't want them to brown too much.

These pears have already been cored, peeled and sliced. Mix them well. Next, grab your springform pan, it's time to pour it. First, I give it a very quick spray with a grease-proof spray. Okay, so take the cake batter and pour it directly into the pan. So you spread this batter nice and evenly in the cake pan. And then carefully sip that last cup of mixture. Do you remember the one we reserved and put a little more flour in? And you pour this gently over the top. Beautiful. Now, just before you put the cake in the oven, you sprinkle a little sugar on top; you need about two tablespoons.

You bake it for 40 to 45 minutes and you want the top to be nice and golden. See what I mean about that beautiful golden crust you get from sugar. Now to check if it's ready, you insert a cake tester all the way in and it should come out nice and clean. That's perfect. So now we just leave it here on a rack to cool for about five minutes. Now this is how to prepare the caramelized pears to serve with the cake. First of all, in a very hot pan, you are going to melt the butter over medium heat.

And then you add the pear segments and mix them a little. Now you are going to cook them for about eight minutes, turning them from time to time. You want to make sure to brown them on each side and, above all, make sure to brown them on the skin side as well. After those seven or eight minutes are up, we'll add a little bit of maple syrup. And then just a little bit of water can sometimes get too sticky. You stir it to make that beautiful syrup. The pears are ready, turn off the heat. And then I'll take them and put them in a bowl to cool a little bit.

Now that our cake has had about 20 minutes to cool, you may want to just turn it over with a small knife, just to make sure it's not sticking to the sides. If you greased it well, it may not be necessary, but I would like to know that when I release this springform pan, it won't break the cake. Well, there's only one thing left to do. And that's the best. Cut yourself a nice big piece of that cake. I serve it with those syrupy pears and then, if you want, just a little bit of cream. And since there's no one else here to try it, I guess I'll have to do it for everyone.

Let me tell you something, those beautiful pear slices at the bottom and that perfectly delicate cake with a little bit of nutty brown butter. What are you waiting for? Go ahead and do it.