Pear and Pomegranate Upside-Down Cake

This wonderful cake is full of flavour, perfect for showcasing fresh and seasonal fruit

1. For the pear topping, place pears in a shallow, solid DGG 2 steam container, along with the butter, orange juice, molasses and caster sugar. Put in the Miele combination steam oven. Steam on 100⁰C for 5 minutes.

2. When the steam oven has finished, take the steam container out of the oven and give the juices a stir. Turn the pears over and place container back in the steam oven for a further 5 minutes. When the pears are tender, remove the container from the steam oven.

3. Place the pears on a piece of kitchen paper to drain. Pour the juices into a saucepan and simmer to reduce until sticky. Grease and line the loaf tin. Arrange the pears in the base of the loaf tin. Pour over the reduced juices. Place the loaf tin in the freezer but do not allow this to freeze completely.

4. For the cake, pre-heat the combination steam oven on Cake Plus 170⁰C. In a food processor blend together the nuts, flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cinnamon until it becomes a fine powder.

5. Crack the eggs into a large bowl, add the orange zest and sugar, whisk until light and fluffy. This should take about 5 minutes. Fold the dry ingredients and sunflower oil into the egg mixture in four alternating batches finishing with the flour.

6. Remove the loaf tin from the freezer. Carefully spoon the cake mixture over the pears and syrup mixture. Place in the preheated combination steam oven for 35 to 40 minutes. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out carefully onto a plate.

7. For the orange cream, in a bowl whisk together the crème fraiche, orange zest and icing sugar to combine.

8. When ready to serve, slice the cake and top each slice with a spoonful of orange cream.