A wholesome pear cake recipe

I've been getting very ornery when passing the cake/biscuit/etc aisles at the supermarket lately. We generally have a sweet snack at home for us to munch on, but the options are just so horrid! Choose from:

A) awful corporate brand name sweet
B) cheap basic option stuffed full of hydrogenates
C) enticing friendly option that's twice the price

Well, I'm going for D) none of the above. I'm going to make our sweets at home from now on. Yes, it's a bit of extra work, and yes, I'm no baker. But it will be a new challenge that's relatively cheap to take on.

Seeing as Waitrose had some "essential" pears (yes, I'm still a sucker for SOME marketing gimmicks) on offer, I decided to scoop them up and make an upside down pear cake.

Now obviously most cake recipes call for fat, eggs, sugar and flour - all in varying amounts and using various versions of the four. I'm keen to keep these cakes as clean as possible and have opted for olive oil, free-range eggs, unrefined caster sugar and wholemeal flour as my ingredients of choice, though none of the items are organic.

As I didn't want to duff up the cake, I went for traditional ratios - though I may tweak in future.

Upside-down pear cake
(serves 8)

4 pears, peeled, cored and halved
1 square springform tin
a dab of olive oil and a dusting of flour for the tin
175 g unrefined caster sugar
175 g wholemeal flour, sifted
2 eggs
8 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp ground ginger (though use whichever spice you like - cinnamon would be lovely too)
45 ml skimmed milk

Preheat the oven to 230 C.

Oil and dust the springform tin. Place the pears, cut side down, in a circular pattern in the middle of the tin.

In a large bowl, use a hand blender to combine the sugar and olive oil until as fluffy as possible. Blend in each egg individually, adding the next one only when the mixture is consistent.

Fold the flour and the ginger into the mixture and mix until consistent again, and then pour in milk. Stir until consistent one last time, then pour the mixture evenly over the pears.

Bake for 30 minutes, then remove and allow to cool for 10 minutes before popping the cake out of the tin. Serve immediately, or wrap in foil once fully cool. Will keep for 3-4 days in a cool-ish environment.

Calories per serving: 339.

That's higher than I'd ideally like for a snack, so might work on tweaking the sugar content in future. But there's 3.5 g of fibre in each serving as well, so I'm thinking this would make a great snack an hour before a workout.

As for the husband test: had him try it BEFORE telling him about the wholemeal flour (he doesn't mind these things, but if he knows it will impair his enjoyment...) and he was really pleased with it. (Though who isn't pleased when someone makes them a cake, I'd like to know.)

So will continue my cake journey and keep you updated. Do feel free to recommend any other cake ideas and I'll give them a go.