Blue Cheese, Pear and Walnut Cake

It’s been quite a long time since my last post here. I haven’t been
cooking much, but I recently started to get back into the groove. I made
a few things and they turned out pretty great. I also got a new camera –
Nikon D700, so I am extremely excited and can’t wait to start cooking
and taking pictures again.

I got this book called “Cakes & Loaves” a few months ago. I fell
in love with the pictures of the cakes – so simple, so bright, so
inviting and delicious. Later, while browsing through the recipes I was a
little bit disappointed – it seemed like there were just a couple of
basic recipes and the rest were just multiple variations of the same
idea, just different additions and flavourings. I thought about
returning the book, but the pictures were too inspirational and I left
it on my shelf. That was more than six months ago and I completely
forgot about this gem until last week. I picked up the book and
rediscovered all the beautiful cakes again. One of them just screamed my
name. Blue Cheese, Pear and Walnuts – what a perfect  and classic
combination of ingredients. Salty, spicy cheese combined with soft,
sweet pear and crunchy, earthy nuts. On top of all that, the cake is
very easy to make, all the ingredients just need to be combined and
baked – no whipping, melting, resting, separating, etc. needed.

recipe adapted from “Cakes & Loaves” by Ilona Chovancova

• Blue cheese, crumbled (such as Roquefort) – 125 g
• Pear, peeled and chopped into 1x1cm cubes – 1 
• Walnuts, coarsely chopped – 60 g
• Eggs – 3
• Milk – 100 ml
• Walnut oil – 3 tablespoons
• Olive oil – 3 tablespoons
• Flour – 1 1/2 cups
• Baking powder – 1 tablespoon
• Sugar – 2 teaspoons
• Mild Cheddar, grated – 100 g
• Salt, pepper

– Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).
– Butter and flour the cake pan.
– In a big bowl mix together eggs, milk and both oils.
– Add the rest of the ingredients and mix just until it all comes together and no flour is visible. make sure that the filling is evenly distributed through the batter.
– Transfer the batter into the cake pan and bake for 50 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean with no crumbs.
– Cool the cake in the pan.

Comments
– You may omit the sugar, I just like the combination of salty and sweet and I think the batter becomes to plain without it.
– Blue cheese should be strong since there are so many other ingredients in the cake. Milk blue cheese would be lost in it.
– This cake goes amazingly well with Strong Cider.