A Pear Tree and Browned Butter Frosting Recipe. Yum!!!

I am lucky enough to have a pear tree in my back yard. I don't know why I say that with pride.  I didn't plant it. It's even growing in a nasty brush line across the back of our property.  I just think it's neat that  in the middle of all the junky, weedy bushes a pear tree grows and produces delicious fruit. I also love it because I can say that I get free organic pears.  There are only 2 people I know that would actually be envious.
I start watching it in August and in a couple of weeks time I'm nagging Johnny to help me pick the pears.  I guess I should say I'm actually asking him to climb the ladder and dangerously balance on one of the branches so I can shout, "no, this one!" or "no, that one!" as he chops at them with his pocket knife and I watch, and duck out of the way as they fall.  It's not my fault, I'm too short for the ladder to allow me to help at all.

This year I used a few of those pears to make an almond pear cake with a cinnamon brown sugar butter cream frosting.
I used this recipe from Country Cleaver and it had a great flavor. The only thing that I would change is to start checking the cake at 23 minutes instead of at the 30 minute mark.  Usually my oven bakes slightly slower that normal, but I would still recommend this timing for you as well.  The recipe uses a cooled browned butter.  Browned butter is exactly what it sounds like.  I browned my butter in a stainless steel pan so that I could accurately assess the color and it turned out just right.  It took me a minute to warm up to the nutty taste of the frosting but after a couple bites I was completely convinced.  This is a great cake and the flavors pair very well together. If you're looking to try a new cake with a new flavor, this is the one.
Of course I had to try to put a couple pears on top of the cake.  I piped some chocolate pear outlines and stems and let them harden so I could add them to the silly butter cream pear forest surrounding the top of the cake.