Pear, Chocolate & Almond Cake — for Nicola Griffiths & All of You :)
As many—but perhaps not all—of you may know, I am a foodie as well as (per the ‘legend’ above!) a novelist, poet, interviewer and blogger. 😉
I also love SFF and an SF novel I very much enjoyed is Nicola Griffiths’ Ammonite–which you will also see listed on my recent post: Women Write Science Fiction: Yes, We Do!
So when I saw Nicola tweeting about almond croissants (a favourite!) and also chocolate, I had to advocate for this Pear, Chocolate & Almond Cake—and having first tantalized, promised to post it today. 😉
So without further ado, here it is:
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Pear, Chocolate & Almond Cake
Ingredients:
5 eggs, separated
120 g castor sugar
120 g plain cooking chocolate, melted on a very low heat, then cooled slightly
1 large, firm pear, peeled & grated
120 g ground almonds
icing sugar for dusting
Method:
- Preheat oven to 180 oC. Line & grease a 22 cm spring-form cake tin.
- Beat the egg yolks & castor sugar together until light and fluffy.
- Fold in the melted cooking chocolate, grated pear & ground almonds.
- Beat the egg whites until stiff then fold into the egg and chocolate mixture.
- Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 25-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. (Note: it takes about 35-40 in my oven but can get oven variation on heat/time.)
- Remove the cake from the tin and cool on a wire rack. (Note: I tend to remove from the spring-form tin oven but leave in greaseproof lining until cool.)
- When ready, sift over icing sugar and serve with whipped cream. (Strawberries are also very nice with it.)
Serves: 10-12
And as Julia Childs would have said: Bon appetit.
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Also:
– it’s both gluten and dairy free
– both taste and texture are absolutely fabulous
– the recipe originated from New Zealand’s Cuisine magazine, but an edition so long ago that I have lost all other details!
Note: despite the photo, I don't usually ice this cake. (It's tricky!)
I finally got around to making it.
It is a very good cake. Rather ‘alternative’ but good. It is also an easy-enough recipe to do – a big bonus.
I served it with ice cream and that worked.
Also the cooking chocolate that I used had milk solids in it.
Thanks for sharing.
Glad it worked for you, June.:) But a good call, the chocolate needing to be dairy free; ‘forgot’ that the one I use is!