Today’s Cake – Maple Pear and Pecan Cake

Delicious little cakes.  Makes 16.

Ingredients
175g butter
2/3 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 eggs, plus 1 egg yolk, extra
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup grated pear
16 pecan halves, to decorate

Making it
1. Preheat oven to 160C. Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until pale and creamy.

2. Add the vanilla bean paste, eggs and extra yolk and beat well to combine. Add flour, baking powder and maple syrup and beat until just combined.

3. Fold through the pecans and pear.

4. Spoon into baking cups and top cakes with a pecan half. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

Today’s cake – Apple and Pecan cake

This goes very well with the morning coffee! If you’d rather have something to dunk, try my morning coffee biscuits instead.

Ingredients
3 cups plain flour
2 cups caster sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Red Delicious or Golden Delicious apples, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes
150g pecans, roughly chopped

Making it
1. Grease a square cake pan, and line the base with baking paper. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celsius
2. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt
3. In a separate bowl combine the eggs, oil, and vanilla. Pour into flour mixure and combine
4. Add apple and pecan an stir through
5. Pour into tin and bake for 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean