Pear Coffee Cake

I woke up to a cold and rainy Sunday morning, with an over-ripe pear in my fruit bowl. I knew immediately that the perfect answer to this circumstance was to make this coffee cake that my mom made once when I was home visiting during college. I often make it with canned pears, which works fine - but using the fresh one I had today, ripe as it was, resulted in a better texture. The recipe calls for orange and lemon zest, but I didn't use either, and that was fine (though it was lacking some if the citrus zip that it would have otherwise had).

Pear Coffee Cake

Preheat the oven to 350. Halve and core a fresh pear and cut it into wedges. As the oven warms, melt 3 Tbsp butter in an 8" round cake pan (or a pie pan, or a 9" square pyrex). Arrange the pear wedges over the bottom of the pan.

Combine:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp orange peel, grated

1 tsp lemon peel, grated

Sprinkle half of the above mixture over the pear wedges.

Beat together:

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

Mix together and then add to egg mixture until just combined:

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

Pour batter over pears. Sprinkle remaining brown sugar mixture over the top and marble through the batter with a knife. Bake for 30 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before inverting over a plate. Serve warm.