Please wait, the site is loading...

Reader recipe: pear chocolate cake with sauce


Serves: 10
timePrep time: 30 mins
timeTotal time:
Reader recipe: pear chocolate cake with sauce
Recipe photograph by Ant Duncan

Reader recipe: pear chocolate cake with sauce

Cat Holdcroft from Walsall entered our chocolate cake recipe competition and won with her warm chocolate and pear cake, served with a hot chocolate sauce. ‘I love this recipe, my nana had pear trees in her garden and we made this regularly, so it reminds me of her. I always love fruit in recipes – it’s my signature. I recommend serving this warm, with some vanilla ice cream.’

Serves: 10
timePrep time: 30 mins
timeTotal time:

Rate this recipe
Print Print

Nutritional information (per serving)
Calories
305Kcal
Fat
19gr
Saturates
9gr
Carbs
26gr
Sugars
18gr
Fibre
2gr
Protein
6gr
Salt
0.8gr

Ingredients

  • 3 just-ripe pears
  • 125g soft salted butter, plus 1 tbsp
  • 125g caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp
  • 2 medium eggs
  • 3 tbsp milk
  • 100g self-raising flour
  • 25g cocoa powder
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 100g ground almonds
  • icing sugar, to dust
For the chocolate sauce
  • 150g dark chocolate (50% cocoa solids)
  • 150ml whipping cream

Step by step

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas 4 and line a 20cm diameter springform tin with baking paper.
  2. Peel, core and chop the pears into bite-size chunks. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a non-stick frying pan, add 1 tablespoon of caster sugar and the pears and cook on a fairly high heat for 5-7 minutes, until starting to colour. Cool, then pat the pear pieces dry on kitchen paper.
  3. Cream the 125g butterand 125g sugar togetherwith an electric mixer then beat in the eggs, one at a time, followed by the milk; don’t worry if it looks a little curdled. Sift in the flour, cocoa and baking powder, then mix in the ground almonds. Gently fold in the pear pieces.
  4. Spoon into the lined tinand bake for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer comes out without any sticky cake batter on it. Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before releasing.
  5. Meanwhile, for the chocolate sauce, break the chocolate into a heatproof bowl, add the cream and set over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir every few minutes until the chocolate has melted; keep warm.
  6. Dust the still-warm chocolate pear cake with icing sugar and serve with the hot chocolate sauce.
    To store
    The cake keeps for upto 3 days in an airtight container. It can be served at room temperature but is at its best served warm; leftovers can be microwaved to reheat.

You might also like...