Certain Saturday mornings call for baking up a coffee cake. This particular Saturday, our son was home from college for the weekend which is always cause for making an extra effort for breakfast. Fortunately, neither of our teenagers wake up much before 10am so that allows for plenty of time to bake up something special on a weekend morning. This recipe marks a return of one of my favorite ingredients, fresh ginger. I bet my loyal readers were starting to wonder if something was terribly wrong with me. After all, at last count 20 of my recipes include fresh ginger!

Spiced Pear Coffee Cake with Ginger Crumble

by Inspired by the Seasons

For the crumble:

3/4 c all-purpose flour
1/4 c firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 c granulated sugar
1/4 c butter, melted
1 tsp fresh grated ginger
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Place ginger and butter in a small bowl and melt in the microwave. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients and drizzle in the ginger butter mixture until combined. With fingers, crumble together.

For the cake:

1 cup of diced pear, skin removed
1/2 c butter, softened
1/2 c brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 c vanilla Greek yogurt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8"x 8" pan or line with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, combine diced pears and cinnamon, nutmeg and ground ginger.

Place butter and sugars in a medium bowl and cream together with a hand mixer until fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla and then stir in yogurt.

Combine remaining dry ingredients and add to wet ingredients. Stir until combined. Gently fold in pears. Top with crumble.

Add batter to baking dish. Bake for 60 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.