This is a perfect cake to make when pears are in season and very ripe! Great as a coffee cake or afternoon snack.
I wanted to make this for a friend's birthday. It seemed like a lot of flour and I was worried because the mixture seemed much denser than I would have thought it should THEN it took about ONE HOUR longer than the recipe suggests to cook! I left the oven at 180 but shifted the cake onto the lower shelf after the first hour. Then I thought I'd burned it - but it was AMAZING. Just need to alter expectations. More pear woulda been nice too. - 17 Aug 2012
I made a rookie mistake and didn't check my pantry and found I was out of nuts! I thought about chocolate chips but decided they would overpower the taste so I grabbed a half bag of skor bits and poured them in the brown sugar, cinnamon mixture. The strusel in the middle turned into a tasty butterscotch swirl. The topping was the best though as it was almost like a brown sugar sauce in spots where the mixture was blobbed. So good! I wouldn't make it any other way now. - 20 Feb 2008 (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)
my only changes were to increase the cinnamon and used all purpose flour. 1/4 tsp did not sound like much. However, there is the cinnamon suagr in the crust when it was buttered and it didn't really need the extra cinnamon after all. Great way to use up the too many ripe pears I had on hand! mine came out nice an moist. I did not use the carmel. I like carmel...but this cake is quite sweet as it is and added carmel would make it just too sweet for me. - 06 Oct 2011 (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)