Spiced nashi cake

This is a recipe I picked up from the New Zealand Nashi stand at a guild of food writers market day recently, it’s low in sugar and fat, letting the natural sugars and crisp flavour of the nashi shine through. This cake freezes well and nashi season ends in July so I’ve cooked an extra one and cut it into wedges for the freezer so we can pack it into lunchboxes.

Ingredients

2	Nashi pears (Main)
½ cup	Honey
1	Egg, beaten
1 ½ cups	Flour
1 tsp	Baking soda
1 pinch	Salt
1 tsp	Cinnamon
½ tsp	Nutmeg
½ tsp	Allspice
1 cup	Sticky raisins
½ cup	Walnuts, chopped
1 to dust	Icing sugar

Directions

1. Heat oven to 180C. Cube nashi into a bowl. Stir in honey and stand for 2-3 minutes.
2. Stir in beaten egg.
3. Sift and add flour, baking soda, salt cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice.
4. Add raisins and walnuts.
5. Place mixture in a greased 22cm tin and bake for 50 minutes. Cool and dust with icing sugar if you wish.