This Gluten-free Pear and Caramel Cake is made with almonds and topped with sticky pine nuts.
Updated 2026 · Originally commissioned by Fruitdrop
Pears are my ultimate autumn fruit. My dad used to have a pear tree at the top of his garden and every autumn we’d get bags and bags of them. The only problem was that they were often rock hard. Which is great for storing but less satisfactory for immediate eating.
What I didn’t realise then was that I could have cooked the pears; pears can be turned into compotes or cakes. When my dad turns up with the annual pear glut now I plenty of ideas how to use them.
I was surprised I’d so far only featured pears once, in Pear and Ginger Spelt Muffins – that Ted helped to make during October half term.
There were no problems with under-ripe pears from Fruitdrop. They were perfect for eating and unlike some pears, had a decent window of optimum ripeness i.e. didn’t turn into sawdusty mush within 48 hours.
As was the case with all the fruit in our Fruitdrop box. The bananas didn’t go spotty for a week (we did store them separately from the rest of the fruit to lessen the speed of their ripening), we’re still chomping our way through the apples and even still have some grapes in the fridge.
We joked at home that we had enough fruit to supply most of Ted’s infant school with their fruit snack that day. The generously sized Fruitdrop essentials box contains around fifty pieces including apples, bananas, satsumas, plums and pears with a seasonal version including berries, peaches/nectarines or figs / lychees / dates.
The Fruitdrop boxes are primarily aimed at small and large businesses, however if you’re a big family getting through a lot of fruit and good neighbours with someone doing the same, it could work out for you too. The box we tried was a generous fortnight’s worth for a family of 4.
Fruitdrop are currently working with UK food bloggers to showcase recipes that can be made with their fruit boxes. Being a lover of pears, I made Gluten-free Pear Cake topped with pine nuts and salt caramel.
Making Gluten-free Pear Cake With Caramel – Step by Step Pictures
There’s a printable recipe sheet further down but here are some pictures of stages making the gluten-free pear cake.
First I made caramel sauce from soft light brown sugar and water. I had made similar cakes using Vahine caramel from France (bottled runny caramel perfect for Iles Flottantes) but for this I made my own – it was very quick and easy.
You can see the caramel syrup thickening up. Turn off the heat and set aside whilst you make the rest of the cake.
Preparing the pears. Although they didn’t look over ripe, they were very juicy.
Preparing the pears – peeled, halved and chopped into chunks.
Meanwhile, making the batter in a mixing bowl.
The juicy pears get stirred lightly into the batter.
Pour the batter into the cake tin and drizzle with caramel. Then add a scattering of toasted pine nuts. If I’m honest, I rather fancied eating it like this.
After baking the cake looks even more tempting. We enjoyed the combination of textures, almond meal, juicy pear chunks and the caramelised crust with sticky pine nuts. If you like polenta cakes, you will enjoy this.
Gluten-free Pear Cake With Caramel Topping
Equipment
- 9 inch circular baking tin lined with baking parchment paper
Ingredients
For The Cake:
- 180 g butter softened
- 180 g soft light brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 140 g self raising flour gluten-free
- 40 g ground almonds
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 pears
- 50 g pine nuts
- 1 tbsp icing sugar for sprinkling
For The Salt Caramel:
- 75 g soft light brown sugar
- 50 ml water
- pinch salt generous
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200c / Gas 6. Line a 9 inch circular baking tin with a paper base of non-stick baking parchment, grease the sides of the tin either with butter or a baking spray.
- In a large mixing bowl beat the softened butter and sugar together until they are fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs lightly then sieve over the flour and almonds and fold in until just combined.
- Peel, core and chop the pears into 2cm chunks. Fold the fruit into the cake batter along with the vanilla extract. Set aside.
- In the oven, toast the pine nuts for 5-10 minutes so they turn golden brown. Keep an eye on them as they will suddenly brown too much if you leave too long. Set aside to cool.
- Meanwhile you can make the salt caramel syrup in a small saucepan. Over a moderate heat melt the sugar and salt into the water and bring up to the boil for a minute or so allowing it to thicken. You can cool the syrup quickly by plunging the base of the saucepan into a large bowl of ice cold water (this works best with aluminium saucepans). The syrup is thick enough when the wooden spoon leaves an empty trail on the pan surface - add more sugar if still runny.
- When the syrup has cooled slightly, drizzle half of it over the surface of the cake and scatter over half of the pine nuts. Using a cocktail stick, lightly swirl the caramel and pine nuts into the surface of the cake batter. Stir the remaining pine nuts into the remaining caramel syrup in the pan and set aside.
- Bake the cake until golden brown and a knife or cocktail stick comes out cleanly - around 30 minutes.
- Allow the cake to cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. To serve, sprinkle over icing sugar and scatter over the remaining caramel covered pine nuts.
Some Further Recipe Suggestions:
- Gluten-free Plum Cake With Blueberries
- Fig Cake With Redcurrants
- Blackberry Blondies – can be made with gluten-free flour
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