Chocolate pear dessert cake
Ingredients (serves 10)
• 125g butter, chopped
• 200g good-quality dark chocolate
• 3 eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 cup self-raising flour, sifted
• 100g packet ground almonds (see note)
• 2 small pears
• 1 tablespoon raw sugar
• thick cream, to serve
Method
1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease and line a 23cm (base) springform
pan.
2. Combine butter and chocolate in a small saucepan over very low heat.
Cook, stirring constantly with a metal spoon, until almost melted. Remove
from heat.
3. Using an electric mixer, beat eggs and caster sugar in a large bowl
for 3 minutes on high speed, or until thick, pale and creamy. Stir in
warm chocolate mixture.
4. Fold flour and almonds into chocolate mixture. Pour batter into prepared
cake pan. Thinly slice pears, discarding cores, and arrange over top of
cake batter. Sprinkle with raw sugar.
5. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes, or until crumbs cling
to a skewer inserted into the centre of cake. Cool in pan. Serve slices
of cake with cream.
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