This weekend, we went out to play in the fallen leaves. For me, that's exactly what fall is all about: walks in the park adorned with its beautiful orange colour, and then go back home to a delicious chocolate and pear cake. A wonderful recipe that enticed me on the lovely blog Amuses Bouche, and that I have already made 3 times since!
This cake is so easy to make and I love how great the whole pears look when you cut it. I wanted to try it with a salted butter caramel sauce, it was beautiful and delicious, but maybe a little too sweet for me. Perhaps, next time I'll go for a simple chocolate sauce to enhance the chocolate flavour. However, I am really pleased with my personal touch: the speculoos crumbs. They bring a lovely crisp to this chocolate and pear cake, making it the perfect cake to bake again and again this autumn.
Chocolate and whole pear cake
Ingredients
For the pears in syrup
- 4 small pears
- 750ml water
- 150g sugar
- the juice of one lemon
- the seeds of a vanilla pod
For the chocolate cake
- 150g dark chocolate
- 50ml cream
- 120g of butter at room temperature, cut into from
- 120g of sugar
- 4 eggs
- 80g ground almonds
- 40g flour
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 pinch of salt
Decoration
- sauce salted butter caramel (see recipe on my [url: 2]layer cake caramel[/url][/ i]) or chocolate sauce ([i]80g chocolate + 80g doublecream )
- 4-5 crumbled speculoos to decorate
Instructions
Make the pears in syrup
- In a saucepan, heat the water, sugar, lemon juice and vanilla until the sugar dissolves.
- Peel the pears and remove the dark part a the bottom of each pear using a knife.
- Add the pears in the syrup and cook for 10 minutes over medium heat. Let the pears cool down in the syrup.
Prepare the chocolate cake
- Preheat oven to 180°C.
- Drain the pears and cut the bottom (about 5mm) so that the pears stand straight in the tin.
- Put the chocolate to melt with the cream in the microwave (not to high not to burn the chocolate). Stir to finish melting the chocolate.
- Whisk the softened butter with the sugar. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well between each. Stir in the warm melted chocolate.
- In a different bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Sift to avoid lumps and add it to the previous mic.
- Line a 28-30cm long cake tin with parchment paper (essential to remove the cake easily from the tin). Transfer the dough into a pipping bag (or a zip bag), cut the end and pour a little dough in bottom of pan. Put the pears standing straight in the tin and pour the remaining dough around the pears (it's perfectly normal if you can still see a big part of the pears!)
- Bake for about 50 minutes. Wait 15 minutes before removing your chocolate and whole pear cake out of the tin using the excess lining baking paper. Let the cake cool down on a rack before decorating with the caramel sauce.
Decorate the cake
- Pour the caramel or chocolate sauce around the pears then the rest of the cake. Sprinkle the speculoos crumbs on top and your chocolate pear cake is ready!
Are you sure about 1 tablespoon baking powder? Not teaspoon?
Well, now is too late for my cake. I already put in just 1 teaspoon. We’ll see will it work :))
What about the almonds? When do they go in?