Swedish Pear and Almond Cream Cake

On the outside, it looks like the plainest of vanilla bundt cakes, but once sliced, the hidden layer of juicy pears enrobed in sweet almond cream is revealed.

The cake is a very good, basic vanilla coffee cake – moist, dense and a little tangy from the sour cream. The batter is spread into the prepared pan and on top of that an almond cream made of almond paste (I use this recipe and keep it in the freezer until needed), butter, egg etc is added. The final touch is a generous layer of sliced, fresh pears. Remarkably, the pear/almond cream “topping” sinks into the cake during baking, ending up near the top of the cake once it’s inverted.

It reminds me of a lovely French pear and almond tart…..it’s nice to enjoy those flavours in cake form for a fraction of the effort.