Ola’s Pear and Almond Custard Cake

Gluten free Pear and Almond Custard Cake made for a client using pears from their garden.   Be part of our amazing care team, have a look at our careers page

For the crust:

• 2 cups of ground almonds
• ¼ cup of sugar (I used demerara because it gives the crust a lovely brown color)
• 50 g of unsalted butterBudyn
• 1 egg
• Ground cinnamon

Literally mix everything together until well combined and then press the dough evenly into the bottom and side of the baking form you are using. Poke some holes into the dough using the fork. Bake for about 10 min in 180C (350F) until golden brown. If the edges are browning too fast, cover with aluminium foil

Filling

I used Polish custard called “Budyn” you can buy it in any Polish shops – I go to Jaroslaw Byczkowski  and they have different flavours (I will grab some for you next time I shop there as it is actually a very nice desert itself) . I will tell you how to make it but it is really easy

You then put this custard on the baked crust and spread it evenly (it’s really sticky)

Pears

Peel them and cut them in pieces. Heat up some honey with cinnamon and cloves and cook the pears in this syrup for about 10-15 min. Then take the pears out and drain them a little. They will soak in the amazing flavour of honey syrup.

You can actually make a brilliant dessert at this point – honey glazed pears with vanilla custard – doesn’t this sound lovely? 😊)

Right, back to the cake – put the pears on top of the custard filling and then simply make a crumble (butter, sugar, flour – I used gluten free flour) and sprinkle it on the cake

Bake for about 45 min

I think it could potentially taste amazing with some cream on ice cream (or both) lol

Also, depending on the flavour of the custard you can make different versions of this cake – vanilla custard filling with apples, chocolate custard filling with raspberries or strawberries or cherries, toffee custard filling with apples etc….