Sugar, spice, and everything nice… sweater weather is made better with a slice of spiced pear cake by your side.

Leaves have fallen, so I guess it’s time to crank up that Christmas music, am I right? It’s only November and I’m already wondering what fun new Christmas songs will be released this holiday season, and started the scheduling of my December calendar. Thankfully this Vancouver weather has been holdin’ up, and despite the drops in temperature, the sun is still shining upon us this fall season and I’m loving this crisp & vibrant time of the year.

I decided to make this recipe one weekend when all my house had was three pears and basic staple baking ingredients in the pantry. I don’t especially enjoy eating pears by themselves, so I decided to make them into something better! And since it’s autumn and I was feelin’ festive, I drafted up a recipe for a spice cake.

I’ve never really had a spice cake before, but I think it comes from the same family as carrot cake, and I’m sure we both are familiar with that cake variety. If not, try our naturally sweetened vegan carrot cake, our oldie-but-a-goodie carrot cake muffins, or even our carrot cake truffles for a quick and easy snack!

Because I thought that the pear spice cake combo would pair well with applesauce, I decided to try a batch of these using no oil and replaced the oil with apple sauce… the result? The gummiest cake ever to exist. It was actually so gummy that I tried bouncing them off the kitchen counter and succeeded. 120% do not recommend. I was so sad because there was no saving it at that point, and there was nothing I could do to it to mask the terrible texture. The saddest part was that it wasn’t even gluten-free!! Yikes, my baking intuition still needs a lot of work…

Regardless, the other batch I made had fats added to it, so it turned out cakey and waaaayyyy better than the oil-free version. It’s always humbling to see how just replacing one thing in your baking can change the texture so immensely, so this is to prove to one of my best friends Pamela that you shouldn’t add water when the recipe is calling for cream!!! (true story: she probably has substituted everything for everything else in every recipe of the baking world… and this means her baked goods never fail to discourage her from baking). Pam, if you’re reading this, you’re probably laughing, but next time try to follow the recipe without substituting flour with breadcrumbs! (ahahha imagine that!). But don’t worry, I’ll still love your baking no matter what just because you made it.

If you’re feelin’ the autumn and holiday vibes, try this spice cake this weekend (or weekday cause who says we can only bake on weekends?!) and enjoy it with a cup of your favourite tea or coffee!