Caramel Pear Cake

Retail stores start pushing holiday crap soooo early now.  I was at the grocery store last week and they were unpacking Christmas stuff.  Are you kidding me?  But Blogland does it, too.  Fall food and decor has been showing its face on Pinterest for at least a month now.  It's obnoxious.  Why do we have to hurry up with everything?  Can't we just enjoy the rest of September before we start hauling our Halloween stuff out of the attic?

And now that I've ranted about that, let me remind you that fall food is hands down my favorite thing of all time.  I LOVE all things food this time of year.  All of it.  Apples, roasts, crock pots, yams, ciders, gravy, chicken and dumplings, all of it.  

Love.  It.  

So I made a Caramel Pear Cake.
I hosted Girl's Night at my house on Friday, and I searched my It's Fall Ya'll Pinterest board for a yummy dessert to make.
Mmmm, caramel.

The original recipe is Caramel Apple Cake.  But I didn't have apples, I had pears.  So I switched it up.  It's smothered in homemade caramel sauce, I didn't think anyone would complain about the fruit swap.

In addition to using pears instead of apples, I cored and thinly sliced them with a mandolin, rather than grating them.  I wasn't sure how well the pear would hold up to a grater, so I figured the slices would be better.  I added a teaspoon of Allspice, too.  Other than that, I followed the recipe.

Here it is comin' together at my house:

First up, layer your sliced pears in a greased and floured springform pan.

Mix up your batter and pour it over the pears.

Stick it in the oven and make your super easy caramel sauce.

Pour the caramel over the baked cake, sprinkle on chopped pecans, and bake for another 15 minutes.

Let cool long enough for the caramel to set up, then remove the sides of the pan.

I don't know if the caramel was supposed to drip down the sides quite so much, but I'm not mad about it.

That's a happy place right there.
It didn't the first night we ate it, but the leftovers the next day reminded me a lot of a bread pudding from one of our neighborhood restaurants.
That's a good thing.
It doesn't suck even a little bit.  I was gonna take pictures of an individual slice, but the kids tore it up.
Nothing left to photograph.
So good.

If you're lookin' for a fall libation, I also made this mulled wine to drink.
Um, delicious.
Really, really delicious.
It's official, I'm embracing fall.  But no pumpkin decor until October.



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