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Biscoff Cake with Pear and White Chocolate
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5 from 5 votes

Biscoff Cake with Pear and White Chocolate

Biscoff cake with pear and white chocolate is a decadent, creamy, and rather sophisticated layer cake. Try it once and expect this pear cake to become one of your favourite Biscoff recipes.
Prep Time45 minutes
Cook Time1 hour 30 minutes
Course: Baking, Dessert
Cuisine: Worldwide
Servings: 10
Calories: 635kcal

Equipment

  • This recipe uses 3 x 6-inch cake tins. These are smaller than the standard 8-inch tins often used in cake baking. Please see the notes for instructions on how to scale up the recipe for larger tins

Ingredients

For the Dried Pears

  • 3 Pears medium, firm, not too ripe

For the Cake

  • 180 g/ 6 ½ oz Butter softened
  • 180 g/ 6 ½ oz Golden caster Sugar
  • 75 g/ 2 ½ oz Biscoff spread crunchy (recommended) or smooth
  • 3 Eggs large, free range
  • 3 tablespoon Buttermilk
  • 180 g/ 6 ½ oz Plain (all-purpose) flour
  • 1 ½ teaspoon Baking powder

For the White Chocolate Mascarpone Frosting

  • 250 g/ 9 oz Mascarpone cheese
  • 150 g/ 5 ¼ oz White chocolate
  • 125 ml/ 1.2 cup Double (heavy) cream around 35% fat

Extras

  • 2 Biscoff biscuits
  • 3 tablespoon Biscoff spread

Instructions

Make the Dried Pears

  • Begin by cutting each pear in half and, using a mandolin, slice 2 wafer-thin slices from widest part of each pear half. You should end up with 12 slices in total
  • Next, peel and core the remaining pieces of pear. Cut into thin chunks
  • Lay the chunks and the full slices in a single layer on a large baking tin covered with parchment and cook at 120C/ 250F/ GM ½ for 1 hour
  • Remove the chunks and set aside to cool
  • Turn the remaining pear slices over then cook for a further hour at 100C/ 210F/ GM ¼ then turn once more and cook for 1 more hour, by which time they should be golden and crisp
  • Let cool completely. Once cool, store in an airtight container (a glass jar is ideal) at room temperature - do not refrigerate

Make the Cake

  • Preheat the oven 180°/ 350°F/ GM4 and grease & line 3 x 6-inch circular baking tins (note these are smaller than average tins)
  • In a large bowl cream the butter, sugar and Biscoff spread together until light and fluffy
  • Next beat in the eggs, bit by bit (to reduce the risk of the batter splitting), followed by the buttermilk
  • Sift the flour and baking soda into the bowl and whisk briefly to combine
  • Finally, fold in the semi-dried pear chunks. Ensure the batter is throughly mixed and no streaks remain, but take care not to overmix as this will result in a tough cake
  • Divide the batter equally between the 3 tins (approx ⅔ full) and bake for around 20 minutes until a skewer poked into the centre of the cake comes out clean
  • Remove from the oven and let rest in the tins for 2 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack and removing the baking parchment

Make the Mascarpone Frosting

  • Melt the white chocolate over a bain-marie or in the micowave in 30 second bursts
  • Briefly beat the mascarpone with electric beaters until smooth (15 seconds) then beat in the melted chocolate
  • Pour in the cream and beat on medium speed for 30-45 seconds until the mixture reaches the soft peak stage. Stop after 15 seconds and scrape the bowl down if necessary, then beat again for another 15 seconds and repeat. NOTE: take care not to overbeat as this will cause the frosting to split and look grainy
  • Rest in the fridge for 20-30 minutes - longer on a hot day

Assemble the Cake

  • Lay a single layer of sponge onto a flat surface and spread a heaped tablespoon of white chocolate mascarpone frosting over the top
  • Take another sponge layer and spread with 1 ½ tablespoons Biscoff then flip it over to top the bottom cake layer so the Biscoff side sites on top of the frosting
  • Add more frosting to the exposed top of this second layer and spread another 1 ½ tablespoons Biscoff onto one side of the remaining sponge cake, then flip this onto the top of the cake layers
  • You should now have all 3 cakes stacked on top of each other
  • Spoon a heaped tablespoon of frosting over the top of the cake and smooth out
  • Load the remaining frosting into a piping bag fitted with a wide plain round nozzle and pipe frosting into the gap between the layers and a pipe a few blobs around the edges of the cake
  • Use a bench scraper to run around the sides of the cake to smooth out the frosting and remove any excess until the naked style is achieved
  • Use the remaining frosting to pipe 12 mounds around the top of the cake in a circle
  • When ready to serve, push a pear wafer into each mound of frosting, crush 2 Biscoff biscuits to fine crumbs and use to fill in the centre of the cake, scattering a little over each mound of frosting too

Notes

Expert Tips

  • Please use digital scales for this recipe as they are so much more accurate than the cup system. Cups are notoriously inaccurate because they can vary in size and one person's method of filling a cup can be quite different to another person's
  • Preheat the oven and prepare the baking tins before baking commenses. This way the cake can go into the oven as soon as it is mixed and those raising agents are activated
  • Always grease the tins and use a circle of baking parchment to line the bases. These 2 steps help ensure the cakes never get stuck in the pan
  • Let the cakes rest in their baking tins for 2 minutes once they are taken out of the oven. They will shrink slightly, pulling away from the edge of the tin. This helps get them out of the tins more easily
  • Mascarpone is quite an unstable baking ingredient as it is prone to splitting easily. However, in this Biscoff cake the mascarpone frosting adds such a fabulous finish to this cake that it's worth using. Do take care not to overbeat the mixture - use electric beaters on a medium speed and beat as little as possible (no more than 1 minute) to combine the other ingredients. The frosting will split if it is overbeaten
  • If the frosting does split you can try to salvage it, although I've not had much success rescuing it to date
  • The pears are optional - they are tasty inside of the sponge and make a fantastically bold statement on top of this Biscoff cake, making it impossible to ignore
  • If you do not have time to oven bake the pears it is best to leave them out of the recipe altogether. Do not use raw pears in the cake batter as they will leak juice into it, turning the sponge cakes soggy
  • Use Biscoff cookies to garnish the top of the cake if not using pears

The Pears

Homemade pear wafers do not have a long shelf-life. For this reason, make them on the day you intend to serve the cake and do not refrigerate them. Add to the finished cake just before taking to the table, otherwise they will wilt and flop.
The pear chunks go directly into the cake batter, so do not suffer in the same way. I do, however, suggest eating the cake within 2 days to avoid the semi-dried pears leaking moisture into the cake.

Tin Size

Please note the recipe presented is for a 3 layer cake made in 6-inch circular tins.
For 8-inch tins either scale up the recipe to use 5 eggs, or simply double it, fill the tins ⅔ full of batter and use any excess batter for making a few cupcakes. Resist the temptation to overfill the cake tins as this will lead to the mixture overflowing as it bakes in the oven.
Regarding decoration, aim for perhaps 16-18 mounds of frosting and therefore cut 16-18 pear wafers from the pears

Storage

If making this cake in advance be aware that once the frosting is on, it will need to be stored in the fridge. Sadly, the oven-dried pears do not have a long shelf-life and certainly do not react well to being chilled - they go limp.
For this reason, do not add either the decorative pear wafers or the biscuit crumbs. Simple frost the cake, transfer to the fridge and add these decorations just before serving.
If you are making in advance and the pear wafers turn soft overnight you can always replace them with halves of Biscoff cookies on the top of the cake.
Eat this cake with 48 hours of baking, otherwise the pears baked into the cake may add extra moisture to the bake

Nutrition

Calories: 635kcal | Carbohydrates: 58g | Protein: 8g | Fat: 42g | Saturated Fat: 24g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 134mg | Sodium: 196mg | Potassium: 225mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 37g | Vitamin A: 1082IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 124mg | Iron: 1mg