Confession: I don’t really like pears. Often hard and grainy; quickly soft and mushy, they do little for me. This recipe is a direct result of receiving yet more pears in our weekly organic delivery and desperately trying to find new ways to ‘use them up’. Necessity is the mother of invention – Fika will never be the same again.

Ingredients:

• 5 pears
• 2 tsp ground cardamom
• Lemon juice
• 250g self raising flour
• 200g golden caster sugar
• 175g unsalted butter
• 3 eggs

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan).
2. Grease some small baking tins with butter or line a muffin tray with paper cases.
3. Pop the butter into a pan and melt it over a low heat. Set aside to cool slightly.
4. Peel and core the pears, then dice them into 5mm cubes. Squeeze the lemon juice over the pears to stop them oxidising and turning brown.
5. Beat the eggs and then mix in all of the ingredients together to form a batter.
6. Fill the tins or cases and bake for around 20 minutes until golden. If you’re making a larger cake it will need a little longer to bake through. 
7. Cool on a wire rack.