Carrie, who illustrated The Allotment Kitchen, made Springfield Cake (Pear and Ginger Sponge) for guests and, on the back of it, six copies of the book were sold.
We had our neighbour in for dinner on Sunday and I cooked a smaller version, suitable for a 20-21cm diameter cake tin, by simply reducing the ingredients roughly by a fifth.
Our apple harvest is meagre but for pears it is a bumper crop and so the book order was a timely reminder; I shall be busy cooking cakes and chutneys this weekend.
This pudding has the most impeccable pedigree. It appears in Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book and then, with full acknowledgement, in Simon Hopkinson’s Second Helpings of Roast Chicken, where he calls it ‘Yummo-scrummo beyond belief’. Hopkinson adds ground ginger to the sponge and accompanies it with a ginger wine flavoured cream. I list these additions as optional. My only change is to blend the crystallized ginger with the eggs so that the sponge is smoother.
Use a nonstick 23-25cm cake tin and put it on the top of the oven over a gentle heat. Add the butter. When it has started to melt, add the sugar and ginger syrup and cook until the ingredients are fused, bubbling and toffee like. Remove from the heat.
Peel, core and slice the pears into eighths, putting the pieces into lemon water as you work. Arrange them in a sunflower pattern on top of the toffee base.
Cream the butter and sugar together, blend the crystalized ginger with the eggs and ginger syrup until smooth. Add all the cake ingredients to the creamed butter and beat well. Pour the cake mixture over the pears and smooth the surface with a knife.
For the top:
90g butter
90g granulated sugar
2 tbsp syrup from a jar
of preserved ginger
Up to 6 firm pears
For the sponge:
125g softened butter
125g caster sugar
100g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground ginger (optional)
30g ground almonds
2 large eggs
3-4 tbsp syrup from a jar of preserved ginger
4 knobs of preserved ginger
Bake at 180°C for 45 minutes or until the cake is cooked. Keep a check on the top of the cake. If it is becoming too brown, cover with a sheet of tin foil. The cake is done when the edges have started to shrink away from the sides of the tin. If in doubt, leave it in the oven for a little longer, bearing in mind that the bottom ingredients are molten.
Leave for 10 minutes before easing the cake’s edges and inverting it onto a large plate. Serve warm with cream with the optional addition of ginger wine and caster sugar.