For this standing pear chocolate cake, you will need some small pears, preferably ripe, although not so much they crumble in your fingers. If your pears aren’t ripe, you should cook them partly in a sugar syrup . Note, there are many ways with sugar syrups for pears, for example, if you don’t have any wine for the poaching, you can use orange juice. The flavour will be different but still beautiful.
As for the nutmeg, I was experimenting and probably put a little too much (1/2 teaspoon) which was not overbearing but maybe not to everyone’s taste. I have reduced it in the recipe. You could also put a pinch of cayenne pepper or medium chilli powder.
Ingredients:
For the cake
- 5 small ripe pears, peeled and cored from the bottom, stem on
- 4 eggs (about 60 g each)
- 160 g of sugar
- 200 g of butter, melted
- 30 g of hazelnut meal
- 140 g of plain flour
- 1 tsp of raising powder
- 1/4 tsp of freshly grounded nutmeg
- 60 g dutch cocoa
For the chocolate sauce (from Pierre Herme):
- 250 ml of water
- 125 ml of cream
- 130 g of dark 70% chocolate
- 70 g of sugar
Preparation:
- Line the bottom and side of a springform pan, about 25 cm wide (it can be less but no wider).
- Preheat oven to 170°C.
- Mix the eggs and sugar until quite moussy. Add in melted butter, nutmeg, cocoa powder and hazelnut meal.
- Add in the flour and raising powder.
- Pour the batter into the lined mould, placing on pear in the middle and the other pears evenly as a ring. Make sure there is batter underneath each pear.
- Bake until just set (about 30-40 minutes, it varies between ovens), the cake will show a few cracks on the sides and the top does not appear wobbly when the cake tin is slightly pushed. Allow the cake to cool down a little (or more if time allows) before transferring to a serving plate.  The cake will collapse in the middle as it should still be gooey.
- To prepare the chocolate sauce, cut the chocolate in small pieces. Place in a thick based saucepan the water, sugar, cream and chocolate. Slowly heat up and stir until smooth with a wooden spoon. Bring to boiling point and simmer while stirring constantly until the sauce becomes unctuous and covers the back of the wooden spoon. Use the sauce hot, or allow to cool at room temperature and use warm. The excess sauce keeps in the fridge for two weeks.
Tip- transferring the cake can be a little tricky. I use the removable metal bottom of a tart tin as a very large spatula.Â
Tip – Keep the cake at room temperature if leftovers (i.e. not in the fridge).
