Double Chocolate Pear Cake -Thanks to Julie Le Clerc

There is a programme on Food TV, featuring that excellent cook, Julie Le Clerc,
called “Café Secrets”, you can Google this, then read about Julie and this very good programme.
All the recipes on there as well.

I watched her make the following
A Double Chocolate Pear Cake

I had some preserved pears in my Pantry, grown picked and preserved by my friends Derrick and Lorraine.

They have a lovely lifestyle block in Bunnythorpe and there are dozens of fruit trees.

One year, they actually grew a pear in a bottle for me and then immersed it in brandy.
Derrick and I tying the bottle onto the bud

Delicious, my own ‘Poire Williams’…well almost.
So after seeing Julie make this cake, I just had to do it.
Not only delicious, but so so simple
Thank you Julie, we all loved it
Word of warning... test the cake at say 45 minutes, I left it in too long.
When I pushed the skewer in it came out damp but I think I make have hit a molten chop chip.
So I left it in another 10 minutes.
It was a little dry. Still tasted very good though.
I fixed it by reducing leftover syrup in a small pan.
I then put holes in the cake, with the aforementioned  skewer, poured the syrup over the cake.
Done!
Actually maybe this could be a good idea anyway. See what you think.


Serves 12
100g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
150g butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups self raising flour, sifted
Extra 100g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 home-preserved pears cooked in red wine or 400g
can pear halves in juice, drained and quartered
Icing sugar, to dust

METHOD
Preheat oven to 180°C.
Spray a 22cm spring-form cake tin with oil and line the base
with baking paper.
Melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of
simmering water (do not allow the bowl to touch the water or
it will get too hot and may damage the chocolate).
Stir until smooth and set aside to cool a little.

Place butter and sugar in a bowl and beat
until pale and creamy.
Beat in melted chocolate and vanilla extract.
Beat in eggs, one at a time.
Stir in flour to just combine.
Stir in extra chopped chocolate.

Spread cake batter into prepared tin.
Slice pears into quarters and arrange over surface of the mixture,
pressing them slightly into the batter.

Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour or until a skewer
inserted comes out clean.
If necessary, cover with foil towards end of cooking
to prevent cake over browning.

Cool in the tin for 30 minutes before removing to a wire
rack to cool completely.

Brush peas with cooking juice to moisten.
Dust cake with icing sugar, if desired.