Upside Pear Crunch Coffee Cake Recipe From Elizabeth Falkner And Harry & David

Elizabeth Falkner has partnered with gourmet gift retailer Harry & David for a Seasonal Chef Program! Falkner created the Upside Pear Crunch Coffee Cake, an easy-at-home recipe, ideal as a holiday dessert dish!

The San Francisco transplant is taking over New York with the upcoming opening of her Brooklyn restaurant, Krescendo. Falkner is also a seasoned veteran in the world of network culinary competitions and author of Cooking Off the Clock: Recipes From My Downtime, published just last month by Ten Speed Press.

She will be returning for redemption to Food Network’s The Next Iron Chef premiering next week!

Elizabeth Falkner’s Upside Pear Crunch Coffee Cake
Serves: 4

For the Crunch:

• 1 ½ C. demerara sugar or brown sugar
• 1 t. ground cinnamon
• ¼ t. ground nutmeg
• ½ t. salt
• 1 TB. flour
• 2 TB. butter

For the Crunch:

Work all ingredients together with a spatula or your fingers and set aside.

For the Coffee Cake:

• 2 ea. Harry & David Royal Riviera® Pears, cored and sliced into 1/2 ” slices with skin on
• 4 oz. unsalted butter
• 1 C. sugar
• 2 ea. large eggs
• 1 C. sour cream
• ¼ C. milk
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 1 ½ C. flour
• 1 ½ t. baking powder
• ½ t. baking soda
• 1 t. salt

For the Coffee Cake:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees convection. Cream the butter and sugar together with a spatula or in a mixer with paddle attachment. Add the eggs and combine to emulsify. Add the sour cream, milk and vanilla extract and stir to combine. Add dry ingredients just to combine.
Sprinkle half of the Crunch mixture divided between 2 loaf pans. Divide the Harry & David Royal Riviera® Pears slices lined down each loaf pan on top of the Crunch layer. Divide Coffee Cake batter over the pears in each pan. Finally, divide the rest of the Crunch over the batter in each pan. Bake for 30 minutes until cake is set.

To Serve:

Cool completely, this takes awhile, be patient. Then invert cake upside when cool, slice and serve.

Here’s a video featuring Elizabeth making the recipe.