Flourless Dark Chocolate & Pear Cake

After checking out a few bakeries, decided to warm up the oven, wipe the dust off and bake something for DH.

Decided on a pear cake since DH enjoyed a friend’s chocolate pear cake served at a dinner gathering some time ago.

Unfortunately couldn't locate the recipe given so had to search for another recipe instead.



Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food.

Ingredients

85g non-salted butter, room temperature
60g caster sugar (can go up to 85g if have sweeter tooth)
85g dark chocolate, melted
1/2 tbsp instant coffee mixed with 1 tbsp water (alternatively, can use 1 tbsp brandy, coffee liquer or rum)
3 large eggs, separated
85g ground almond (alternatively, can use ground hazelnut)
1 tin of pear in syrup, drained (used only 4 half pear pieces or more if you like)


Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 170C degrees.


2. Grease 8 inch cake tin together with a parchment paper at the bottom of cake tin. Swirl and coat 1 level tbsp of soft brown sugar inside cake tin and shake off any excess.


3. In a double boiler, melt chocolate and butter and set aside.


4. Whisk egg yolk with half the sugar until pale in colour and thick. Fold in chocolate, coffee and ground almond.


5. Whisk egg white with remaining sugar until slightly stiff peaks form. Note that if the egg whites are too stiff, it may not blend easily with the chocolate mixture.


6. Fold and mix in chocolate mixture with the egg white.


7. Pour into prepared cake tin. Add sliced pears on top of cake or alternatively (if you prefer a smoother cake top) can chop pears up into smaller but slightly chunky pieces and fold them into the cake mixture.




8. Bake for at least 40 min or until skewer in cake comes out clean.




9. Once cooled, dust with some icing sugar if desired.

The cake was lovely - light and chocolaty. Nice pairing with the pears!! For a more sinful but delightful bite - serve it with a scoop (or two) of vanilla ice-cream together with a drizzle of melted chocolate.

Bench notes - Whole pear halves sunk to the bottom of the cake tin. Suggest using a 9 inch cake tin next time so that pear halves can sit and slightly peer on top of the cake.