While our Christmas Day dinner doesn’t deviate too much from tradition, I do experiment with the dessert. My family, bar one sweet-toothed aunt, avoids dried fruit-based offerings, so classic Christmas cakes and puddings are a hard no. Over the years, I have tried variations on yule logs, pavlovas and sherry trifles, but the biggest crowdpleaser is easily sticky toffee pudding (or something along those lines). This year, I’m making this warming, simple but decadent pear, sticky ginger and pecan pudding, which feels festive and fancy, and can happily make an appearance whenever.
Pear, sticky ginger and pecan pudding
This can be made the day before and reheated before serving. Feel free to serve it with your favourite brandy butter or cream for maximum festiveness.
Prep 10 min
Cook 1 hr
Serves 8-10
2 pears (about 275g)
185g room-temperature unsalted butter
375g light muscovado sugar
3 large eggs
2 tbsp honey
225g self-raising flour
75g ground almonds
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
½ tsp fine sea salt
150ml whole milk
4 balls stem ginger, finely chopped
50g pecans, roughly chopped
300ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
Flaky sea salt (optional)
Creme fraiche or vanilla ice-cream, to serve
Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan)/350F/gas 4 and grease a 30cm x 20cm roasting tin. Peel the pears, cut them into quarters, and remove and discard the cores. Finely chop the fruit into 1cm pieces.
In a large bowl or free-standing mixer, beat 110g butter with 200g sugar for two minutes, until pale and creamy, then beat in the eggs and honey.
In a second bowl, mix the self-raising flour, ground almonds, baking powder, mixed spice and fine sea salt, then fold this and the milk into the butter mix. Fold in the chopped pears and stem ginger, then pour into the greased tin. Scatter the pecans over the top, then bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Remove and leave to cool slightly.
Meanwhile, put the remaining 75g butter in a small saucepan with the remaining 175g sugar, the double cream and vanilla. Bring to a boil over a medium heat, leave to simmer for a few minutes, then take off the heat and stir in a pinch of flaky sea salt, if you like.
I like to serve squares of the warm cake drenched in the hot caramel sauce with a spoonful of something cold and creamy to cut through, ideally creme fraiche or a good vanilla ice-cream.
