When we spot autumn on the horizon with its golden leaves, cosy evenings and warm flavours, we love to bake this gloriously sticky and sweet Spiced Pear Upside-Down Cake.

Made with a touch of ginger and a good glug of gin, it is fragrant, boozy and oh-so-wonderfully autumnal. What’s more, it couldn’t be easier to make at home.

For this recipe, we like to use conference pears because they are readily available in most fruit and vegetable shops and have the perfect flavour and texture for this recipe.

And what a recipe it is!

To start with you will make a ginger and gin caramel, which the pears will sit in before having the easy-to-make cake batter poured over them, ready to be baked.

Once baked and turned out of the cake tin, you are left with a fluffy, moreish sponge crowned with caramelized pieces of pear. So that every mouthful is an autumnal symphony of sweet caramel, zesty ginger, juicy pear, rich gin and delicate cake. Yum!

Which gin should you use for this recipe? We recommend using a London dry gin, like Mad Owl London Dry Gin, or, if you really want to double down on the spiced autumn flavours, why not try using a spiced gin?

Micil Spiced Orange Gin works particularly well in this recipe, the spiced notes and the orange aromas complementing the ginger and the pear wonderfully.

Spiced Pear, Gin & Ginger Upside Down Cake

For the pears

100g light brown sugar
80g butter
2 tbsp gin
1 tbsp ginger syrup (syrup from a jar of stem ginger works here)
2 large pears, peeled, cored & quartered

For the cake mixture

2 large free-range eggs
125g softened butter
125g caster sugar
125g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves

Preheat the oven to 180c and line a 20cm cake tin with parchment - cut the parchment slightly larger than the base so that it comes a little way up the sides, to keep the caramel inside the tin.

Add the light brown sugar to a deep saucepan and heat slowly until it begins to melt, then add the butter and stir together to create a light caramel. Remove from the heat, and after 10 minutes stir in the gin and ginger syrup.

To make the cake batter, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then sift in the flour, spices and baking powder.

Once the caramel has cooled enough to coat the back of a spoon, pour it into the bottom of the lined cake tin. Arrange the pear slices over the caramel, then cover with cake batter.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, until the cake is golden and springy to the touch, and a skewer comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, then turn onto a serving plate.

Our serving suggestion? Slice it while still slightly warm, with a dollop of double cream or crème fraîche, and a Spiced Pear Gin Cocktail to sip alongside it!