Skillet pear cake! {gluten free/ egg free/ dairy free/ nut free/ soy free}

What do you do when you have three pounds of windfall pears that are going bad in front of your eyes? Bake those puppies up into a wonderful skillet pear cake!! 

From Completely Delicious 

Adapted Vegan/GF by Banana Bakes

-1/4 earth balance or other vegan butter substitute 

-2/3 cup brown sugar

-1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract

-1 flax egg

-1 cup gf flour 

-1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

-1/2 tsp baking soda

-1/2 tsp baking powder

-1/4 tsp salt

-1/2 cup non dairy milk

-1/2 tbsp vinegar

-4 pears

**skillet not necessary**

First thing you need to do is prep your 'buttermilk' and 'egg.' To make vegan buttermilk, add 1/2 tbsp of vinegar to 1/2 cup of non-dairy milk. This will curdle a bit, don't freak out, that's what's supposed to happen. This needs to sit about five minutes.

For your flax egg. Add one tbsp of ground flax to two tbsp warm water. Let this sit for at least five minutes so the flax has time to absorb the water. 

Hopefully you have some gf flour blend already mixed up so your kitchen doesn't need to look like this today.. Mix up all your dry ingredients. Make sure to give it a good stir with a whisk to make sure all those important ingredients are mixed evenly into the flour mix. 

Now for the pears. If you're feeling inclined, and have the slicing ability, and firm enough pears, you can slice them beautifully like Completely Delicious did. Otherwise you can do a rough peel and slice however you'd like. Let those sit for a few minutes while you work on this next step.  

Beat the butter and brown sugar in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer until creamy.  Add the vanilla and egg. Mix for another minute or two until combined. Slowly combine the rest of the ingredients, alternating the dry ingredients and buttermilk.  When it's all combined, add to a greased cake pan or your cast iron skillet. 

Ok, so if you're like me and you hacked up your pears, you can just dump them on the top and push them down into the batter. If you're feeling fancy, you can carefully arrange your beautifully sliced pears into the batter in a pretty little circle. 

Bake at 400f for about 20 minutes. If you're using a standard round cake pan it may need a few more minutes of baking. 

Dive in and enjoy!!

Top with a Banana Bakes original- Vegan caramel sauce!