• The first step is to peel, core and puree two of the pears to make ½ cup of pear puree. If you get more than ½ cup, you can save it for something else. The other 2 or 3 pears are to be chopped up and stirred into the cake. You can make the pear puree in a blender or mini chopper.
• Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan. My favorite way is to brush melted shortening all over the inside of the pan with a pastry brush, then dust with flour. The pastry brush gets all the little nooks in the fluted pan.
• Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice.
• In a mixing bowl, beat together the sugar, ½ cup of your pear puree, oil and vanilla. Add each egg one at time until blended.
• With low speed of the mixer or by hand, beat in the spiced flour mixture. Beat until ingredients are blended and batter is smooth.
• Peel remaining 2 or 3 pears and chop. Stir chopped pear into the cake batter, the pour it into the pan.
• Run a scraper or a knife through the batter to get rid of any lumps.
• Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs attached.
• Transfer the pan to a rack and let the cake cool for 10 minutes, then invert it onto the rack and let cool completely, about 20 minutes.
• When cake is cool, prepare the caramel icing.

Caramel Icing

• Put the butter, brown sugar, salt and cream in a 2 quart saucepan and heat over medium just until mixture comes to a boil. Boil 1 minute. Remove from heat; let stand 5 minutes. Whisk in powdered sugar until smooth, then immediately pour over cooled cake. Garnish with Maldon salt if desired