Honey Pear Upside Down Cake

Name: Honey Pear Upside Down Cake
Yield: 1 3-layer, 8-inch cake
Ingredients: 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature; 1 1/2 cups sugar; 4 eggs, room temperature; 3 cups all-purpose flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 cup buttermilk; 1/2 cup honey; 2 teaspoons vanilla; 3 pears, pealed and sliced; 3 tablespoons butter; 1/2 cup brown sugar; 1 tablespoon water; 3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature; 4 ounces cream cheese, softened; 7 cups confectioners' sugar; 4 tablespoons honey

Apr 10

The Recipe

Honey Pear Upside Down Cake – honey butter cake layers, baked with caramelized pears and filled and covered in a honey cream cheese frosting.

Honey Pear Upside Down Cake - layers of honey butter cake baked with caramelized pears and smothered in a honey cream cheese frosting #cakebycourtney #honeycake #buttercake #pearcake #pears #cake #easycakerecipe #upsidedowncake #cakebycourtney #honeypearupsidedowncake

Honey Pear Upside Down Cake

I love fruit and cheese – separate and together. And even more? I love them together in a cake. I came up with my Honey Pear Upside Down Cake about 4 years ago, when I first started my blog. I remember being so proud of myself for coming up with this combination of flavors and textures because it’s so good!

Caramelizing Pears

Before making this cake, I knew that I didn’t want to do a fruit filling and I didn’t want to put the pears into the batter. I don’t like chunks of fruit in my cake layers. Just personal preference. That left me with one option: cooking the pears on top of the cake, just like an upside down pineapple cake.

Using slightly firm barlett pears, I caramelized them a bit with brown sugar, butter and a little water. It’s best not to start with ripe pears because they’ll get mushy as you cook them.

You’ll divide the pears between two of the pans. The third one will be the cake layers that goes on top. The two layers with the pears will be your bottom and middle cake layers. And don’t get rid of the caramel from the sauce pan. You’ll be pouring some of it into each of your pans to bake with the pears and the cake batter.

After you layout the pears between the three pans, you’ll want to carefully pour 16 to 17 ounces of batter on top. Use an offset icing spatula or the back of a spoon to carefully spread out the batter.

How good does this cake look? Even without the honey cream cheese buttercream, it’s already got great flavors and texture. You could cut a slice right now and walk away happy… but don’t… the honey cream cheese frosting is definitely worth waiting for.

Honey Cream Cheese Frosting

For the frosting, I added a little honey to my cream cheese frosting. This creates an awesome flavor but definitely a sticky frosting. It will be extremely hard to get perfectly smooth sides on this cake, with this frosting. I suggest decorating your cake with a little texture. I used the back of my offset icing spatula and created a swirl around the cake.

And if pictures aren’t enough, here’s a quick video of this step:

Enjoy!