The supermarkets have plenty of nice pears at the moment so I thought I’d try this recipe.

As you can see from my photo, I must have been having a wee bit of a senior moment when I took it because the pudding is upside-down on the plate, I did peel the greaseproof paper off the bottom of it, although it looks as if it’s still on. I know what was going through my head when I did it, I was thinking it was the upside-down pear pudding I sometimes do, but that is really quite different. I’ll be doing this one again as it went down very well with some cream, but as usual Jack thinks it would be even nicer with custard!

You need:

5 small pears, peeled, halved and cored
100g or 4 oz butter, plus extra for greasing
100g or 4 oz light brown muscovado sugar
100g or 4 oz black treacle
125ml or half a cup of whole milk
140g or just under 6 oz plain flour
1 level teaspoon ground ginger
a few shakes of cinnamon
1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 medium egg, beaten

1. Heat your oven to gas mark 2 or 150 C (130 C fan assisted oven)
Grease an 18cm square cake tin (I think mine is actually a bit bigger)Line the base with baking parchment or greaseproof paper.
Arrange the pears cut side down in the bottom.

2. Melt the butter,treacle and sugar gently on a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Stir in the milk and leave to cool a little.

3. Sift together the flour, spices and bicarbonate of soda. Beat it into the melted butter mixture along with the beaten egg, I just used a hand balloon whisk to do this.

4. Spread the mixture evenly into the prepared cake tin, giving it a bit of a ‘dunt’ on the worktop to make sure there are no air pockets.

5. Bake for about 1 hour, using the usual skewer method to make sure the centre is cooked through. If it isn’t cooked but the top is browning too much then cover the top with some baking parchment or foil to prevent burning.

Eat!

There is a metric/imperial measurements site here.