Aunt Josephine's Fresh Pear Cake

This dense, moist, creamy-sweet pear cake was the signature dessert of my great-great aunts, Beth and Josephine. It was lost for several years. During that time we tried several different pear cake recipes, but none came close to this one. Now that it has been found again (and slightly updated), I want to share it with all of you, so that everyone can enjoy it! With love, Sarah.

Original recipe makes 1 9-inch cake

Ingredients

cooking spray
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup turbinado sugar
1 cup grapeseed oil
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 cups peeled and finely chopped Bartlett pears
1 cup chopped pecans

PREP

30 mins
COOK

50 mins
READY IN

1 hr 40 mins

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9-inch fluted tube pan (such as a Bundt®) with cooking spray; dust lightly with flour.
Mix flour, baking soda, sea salt, allspice, cinnamon, and cloves together in a bowl.
Beat sugar and grapeseed oil together in a separate bowl until creamy; stir in eggs. Stir flour mixture into sugar mixture; add pears. Blend batter with an electric mixer until thickened, about 3 minutes. Fold pecans into the batter and mix by hand until batter is well blended, about 2 more minutes. Pour batter into prepared pan.
Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes. Loosen cake from pan by gently running the edge of a knife between cake and pan; let cool in pan for 20 minutes. Place a cake plate upside-down atop cake and flip pan to turn cake onto plate.