French Pear Cake

This looks almost too pretty to eat from nikicooks.blogspot.com. Niki adapted this recipe from Taste of Home Cooking Magazine and substituted lemon oil for lemon juice (she says you could probably leave out all together) and used pears instead of apples. Beware! If you've never made caramel before it may take some practice. The first batch Niki made failed so she watched a video on youtube and tried again... better!!

Note from IC Friendly Recipes: If you don’t want to make caramel sauce, I bet you can use Smucker’s Simple Delight Salted Caramel Topping. :)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups sugar, divided
4 teaspoons water
4 teaspoons lemon juice (Niki used 2 teaspoons lemon oil and she says this can probably be omitted)
3 cups thinly sliced pears
3 eggs
1 cup butter, melted
4 ounces Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1 cup all-purpose flour


Directions:

In a large saucepan, combine ¾ cup sugar and water. Cook on medium without stirring until amber. Keep an eye on it and don't let it get beyond amber color. Stir in lemon oil and quickly pour into a 10-in springform pan, coating bottom. Arrange pear slices on caramel in circular overlapping pattern.

In a bowl, beat eggs and remaining sugar until blended. Beat in butter, then cream cheese until smooth. Stir in flour. Spread over pears.

Bake at 350 for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes . Carefully run a knife around edge of pan to loosen; remove sides of pan. Invert onto a serving plate.