Pear Gingerbread Cake

With a deep spicy-sweet flavor reminiscent of German lebkuchen, you should absolutely make this wintry gingerbread cake, baked in a cast iron skillet and flipped onto a platter to let the beautiful pears shine through. It screams for a hot cup of coffee or a big scoop of ice cream - or ideally both. However, before you begin, allow me to share a few important lessons I learned while creating this loveliness:

1) Never overfill a pan with cake batter.

2) If you do overfill a pan and batter starts spilling over the sides of the pan onto the oven's heating element, the oven will immediately start to emit smoke.

3) When there is smoke in the kitchen, you will immediately turn on the range hood vent.

4) If the range hood's ventilation was installed improperly, on a very cold day it may create condensation and start dripping water down the wall behind your stove. You will then need to shut off the vent.

5) Without a vent, you will open the kitchen window to waft out the smokey smell.

6) The kitchen gets cold quickly when you open the window in subzero temps. Add layers.

7) Wrapping yourself in a blanket is not the best option for additional layers to wear while scraping cake batter cinders out of a still-hot oven, causing a level of clumsiness that may incite minor burn injuries.

8) Despite an overfilled pan, smoked-out kitchen mishap, and burnt hand, you can still salvage the cake with a little extra baking time and some edge trimming to produce a tasty final product.

9) Most importantly, any physical or emotional trauma incurred during baking gives the baker completely legitimate reason to enjoy an extra slice (or three).

Pear Gingerbread Cake
From the big green Gourmet cookbook. Clearly, it made more batter than my cast iron pan needed, so obviously don't fill the pan to the top - give it a little bit of room to breathe. Put any extra batter in little greased custard cups for mini gingerbreads.

For topping
2 1/2 firm pears (preferably Bosc)
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

For cake
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup molasses (preferably mild)
1 cup boiling water
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Special equipment: a well-seasoned 10-inch cast-iron skillet or a 12-inch deep nonstick skillet (handle wrapped with a double layer of foil if not ovenproof)

First, make topping: Peel and core pears and cut each into 8 wedges. Melt butter in skillet over moderate heat until foam subsides. Reduce heat to low, then sprinkle brown sugar over bottom of skillet and cook, undisturbed, 3 minutes (not all sugar will be melted). Arrange pears decoratively over sugar and cook, undisturbed, 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

Then, make cake: Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt in a bowl. Whisk together molasses and boiling water in a small bowl.

Beat together butter, brown sugar, and egg in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes, then alternately mix in flour mixture and molasses in 3 batches at low speed until smooth. Pour batter over topping in skillet, spreading evenly and being careful not to disturb pears, and bake in middle of oven until a tester comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes.

Cool cake in skillet on a rack 5 minutes. Run a thin knife around edge of skillet, then invert a large plate with a lip over skillet and, using pot holders to hold skillet and plate tightly together, invert cake onto plate. Replace any pears that stick to skillet. Serve warm or at room temperature.