Did someone say cake for breakfast? Not one to set rules around cake consumption, I will happily partake in a generous slice of this coffee flavoured concoction first thing in the morning. Scattered with syrupy pears and roasted cashews, the billowy aromas wafting from the kitchen will have the rest of the family bounding out of bed, ready to start their day in one of the best ways possible – with cake.

Enjoy xx

Low Salicylate Breakfast Cake

Adapted from Lemons for Lulu

Equipment

• Measuring cups
• Measuring spoons
• Mixing bowl
• Electric mixer
• Springform cake tin
• Storage container

Ingredients

2 pears (peeled and diced for pear syrup)

160 grams unsalted butter (45 grams of this to be used for pear syrup)

3 Tbsp brown sugar (for pear syrup)

3/4 cup maple syrup

2 eggs

2 cups of flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 Tbsp instant decaf coffee

1 cup yogurt

1/2 cup roughly chopped unsalted roasted cashews (1/4 cup extra for sprinkling on top)*

Icing sugar (for dusting)

Method

1.) Preheat fan-forced oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease and line a 20 cm cake tin with baking paper.

2.) To make pear syrup, in a small saucepan combine the pears, 45 grams of butter and the brown sugar. Simmer on low-medium heat for 6 minutes or until the pears are soft and the sugar is caramel in colour. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

3.) Using an electric mixer, whisk together the remaining butter and the maple syrup until creamy. Mix in eggs.

4.) In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and decaf coffee. Slowly add flour mixture with the yogurt to the wet mixture and whisk until just combined.

5.) Pour half of the batter into the prepared cake pan. Pour pear syrup and cashews on top of the batter and carefully top with remaining batter.

6.) Top cake 1/4 cup of cashews. Put cake tin in oven and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool further.

7.) To serve, dust cake with icing sugar and accompany with a generous dollop of cream or yoghurt.

*While cashews have historically tested negligible for salicylates, more recent tests (Malaker et al. 2017) which retested with free and bound salicylates found cashews to be in the high category. Most people tolerate cashews well, while others are prone to a reaction, in which case, omit cashews in future if you do find you experience any adverse affects.