Pear Cardamom Coffee Cake | Desserts Recipes

I have this book Holiday Baking by Fine Cooking. I bought it few years ago to put my new-found interest (baking) into use. But I never really got into trying many except for the Vanilla Cut out cookies. Recently when I flipped over that book this Coffee cake caught my eye. I did not have plum in hand so I used pear. 
If you love the carbs but it loves you back too much, don't worry you can still enjoy this without all the guilt. Three words.. Share with friends. I made this decadent coffee cake one Friday. After reserving some for our road trip the next day, I shared the rest to our neighbors who were moving to a different city.

Ingredients:
Adapted from the fine cooking - Holiday Baking magazine
Serves - 9
For the Cake:
All purpose flour / Maida - 1-1/2 cups + more for the pan
Baking powder - 1-1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Ground Cardamom - 1/2 tsp
Butter - 1/2 cup (cold and cut into little cubes)
Eggs - 2
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Brown Sugar - 1/4 cup
Whole milk - 1/4 cup
Vanilla extract - 1-1/2 tsp
Pear - 1 large (see notes below)
For the Streusel topping:
Butter, melted - 3 tbsp
All purpose flour / Maida - 1/2 cup
Brown sugar - 1/4 cup
Salt - a dash
Ground cardamom - a pinch

Method:
For the Streusel, mix all the ingredients (except butter) and whisk well to mix. Pour the melted butter and continue whisking until the flour mixture resembles crumbs. Cover and refrigerate. Peel and core the pear and cut into thin slices.
Preheat the oven to 375 F / 190 C. Grease the sides and bottom of a 9" square pan with butter. Add a tbsp or so of flour and coat the pan rotating the pan well so that all the butter is covered with flour. Do not coat too much with flour. 
In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, sugars and vanilla until the eggs are well blended.
In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, cardamom until well mixed. Add the cold butter and cut with a pastry blender to incorporate the butter to the flour. I just placed the flour mixture and the cold butter in a blender and pulsed a few times. To this add the egg mixture and mix with the wooden spoon and mix well just until there are no lumps. 
Pour into the prepared baking pan. Spread to form a even layer. Arrange the pear slices, slightly overlapping each other on the pan in three rows. Sprinkle the streusel topping all over the pan. 
Bake for 15-18 minutes until a toothpick inserted near the center of the pan comes out with a few moist crumbs. Cool on a wire rack for 1 hour. Slice and serve.