Pear Coffee Cake with Ginger Pecan Crunch Topping

The Mission: Ingredient Challenge #2 - Pears

The Recipe:
Pear Coffee Cake with Crunchy Pecan Ginger Topping. Though it's a mouthful of a title, I still think it will turn out well. After all, it is a yummy coffee cake including ginger. I figured it'd be a nice, spicy addition to a breakfast menu. And it meets the requirements by including pears :)





The ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. nutmeg
• 3/4 cup canola oil
• 1 slightly beaten egg
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 cups chopped ripe pears
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1 cup chopped pecans

The Instructions:
Mix together flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt, nutmeg, and oil. Set aside 1 cup of mixture for topping. Add 2 cups chopped ripe pear to the rest of the above mixture. Add egg, buttermilk, baking soda, and baking powder. Mix well. Spread in greased 9''x 13'' pan. Topping: add ginger and pecans to the reserved mixture and blend well. Sprinkle over top of batter. Bake at 350*F for 40 minutes or until knife inserted comes out clean.

The Result:

Delicious! Even though I figured out after putting it in the oven that I forgot to add the salt. Oops. But I didn't notice it in the final product, so oh well. I also wasn't sure whether or not to peel the skin off the pears. So I didn't. I took the lazy way out and hoped for the best. Success! I couldn't detect any skin at all in the cake once baked. Hooray.

The Reviews:

Dad - "yum!" Mom - "delicious!" Husband - "I don't eat pears." (so he didn't try any. Wuss.) Friend Mark - "Oh my God." All in all - it was a big hit. My coworker also enjoyed the piece I set aside for her. I'll be back with more reviews. Mom took the remaining cake to work so her coworkers could pass judgement.

Update: Mom's coworker's thought it was good, but no rave reviews.