Rustic Italian Pear Cake

My new favorite cake

I am not, by any means, a baker. I’m much more comfortable cooking up a three-course meal and then buying gelato for dessert. If I do decide to bake, I can usually be counted on to make one of my three ‘signature’ recipes:

Crostata: This is my ultimate go-to recipe, so much so that some people even call me the Crostata Queen. There are a few reasons I make it so often. One is that I always, always have the ingredients in my pantry. Another is that I love eating it. But the main reason is that it’s dead simple and, if I play my cards right, impressive enough.

Strawberry Ricotta Cake: I started making this in 2020, and it was, more or less, an Ina Garten–inspired version of a fig cake I learned in Puglia and published in my book The Italian Table. It’s easy (especially if you have a stand mixer), but it does require a little planning ahead, since ricotta and strawberries aren’t things I always have on hand.

Marcella Hazan’s Farm Wife’s Cake: I’ve been making this one since I first bought my now-battered paperback copy of The Classic Italia Cookbook in 1988. Over the years, I’ve made countless versions of it, with either apples or pears. The most complicated part of the recipe is cutting up the fruit. But lately, whenever I’ve made it, it just hasn’t been doing it for me anymore. It feels a little boring, and I keep thinking that with just a tiny bit more effort, I could create something a step above.

This new recipe is sort of inspired by all three of those, but even better. It’s packed with pears, and since it’s pear season, I hope you’ll give it a try. I made mine with small yellow pears I got at the farmers market, the last ones left, a little overripe, so the vendor gave them to me at a discount. I think it would work with any somewhat firm but sweet pear.

And while the recipe, below, works perfectly well with all-purpose flour, I decided to use stone-ground whole wheat flour for a more rustic, nutty flavor.