http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/05/dining/pear-cake-snacking.html 2016-09-30 22:55:31 A Snacking Cake Packed With Pears Like its cousins banana bread and pumpkin bread, this cake has a moist, tender crumb that’s welcome any time of day. === The first time I encountered a snacking cake, I was a sweet-toothed teenager. But the kitchen was controlled by my parents, health food enthusiasts who thought that rice cakes made a perfectly acceptable midafternoon snack. This is why I went to my friend Abby’s house nearly every day after school. Her kitchen was a teenager’s paradise. There were boxes of doughnuts, bags of potato chips and chocolate chip cookies, and a steady supply of bagels in the freezer — all to be washed down with undiluted orange or apple juice. One day, on the counter, was a square pan of cake — not birthday cake, not crumb cake, not tea cake, but unadorned, easy-to-grab snacking cake, a treat seemingly invented to satisfy post-algebra appetites. Compared with the diet cottage-cheese cake that my mom made when she was feeling indulgent, it was heaven. And ever since then, a homey square of snacking cake, sliced directly from the pan and eaten with a glass of milk, has been a minor obsession of mine. Most snacking cakes are simple and plain, something easily stirred together with one bowl and a wooden spoon, then dusted with a little powdered sugar after baking. This version is more deluxe, topped with a brown butter glaze. The brown butter adds a caramel note to the topping, which I accentuate by using brown sugar along with the usual confectioners’ sugar. It makes for a frosting so ridiculously delicious that it could even make a rice cake taste good. But a better destination is this tender pear cake. Just like its cousins, Another option is to bake the batter into muffins. If you don’t glaze them, they’ll make a lovely autumnal breakfast option, spiced delicately with nutmeg and earthy clove. This said, my vision of this recipe is for sweet afternoon snacking, or even to serve as a modest dessert. Whether you’re a starving teenager or a puckish adult, a slice of pear cake and a glass of milk are satisfying indeed. Recipe: