Chocolate Cake with Poached Pears

Chocolate Cake with Poached Pears

From: [link]

Ingredients:
For the cake:

5 oz dark chocolate with 60% cocoa, chopped into very small pieces
(here I used 1 12-oz. bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips)
4 Tbsp. butter, room temperature plus more for greasing
3 eggs, separated
1 cup confectioners sugar
1/3 cup potato starch
2/3 cup almond flour (and since I did use the whole bag of chocolate chips...oops...... I ALSO had to put in a bit more almond flour to keep it consistent- another 1/2 cup extra, but that was more than enough.)

For the poached pears:

4-6 pears, peeled and cored (I used Bosc, they go well with red wine)
2 cup red wine, recommend Shiraz or Merlot
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. honey
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
lemon zest from 1 lemon (plus some lemon juice, which you will need)

Directions:

First, keep in mind the pears themselves. Once they are peeled, they will go bad or turn brown very quickly in open air. Its very important to have a large bowl of water with lots of ice cubes, plus a good bit of that lemon juice in it, and once the pears are peeled, they go straight into the water.

This does two things: it keeps the pears from browning (while you get all the other ingredients prepared), and, it lends to the pears a subtle lemon flavor.

Then to make a poached pears: Combine wine, honey, sugar lemon zest, cinnamon stick and anise star, and bring to a boil. When the wine mixture is boiling, turn heat down to a simmer and then fish out the pears from the water. Simmer pears for 25-30 minutes until they are tender and are easily poked through with a fork. Remove pears and let them cool.

Boil wine sauce until the liquid has been reduced by half.

To make a cake: Preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter an 9-inch pan with 2-inch sides.

Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set over but not touching barely simmering water in a saucepan. Heat, stirring, until the chocolate melts, about 2 minutes. Add the butter and continue to stir until the butter melts and is incorporated. Let it cool.

In a bowl, sift together the almond flour and potato starch. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the egg yolks and sugar. Using an electric mixer set on medium speed, beat until creamy, 3 to 4 minutes. Fold in the starch mixture and then the chocolate mixture until blended.

In a clean grease-free bowl, using an electric mixer beat the egg whites slowly until they are frothy. Increase the speed, and continue beating until the whites are stiff and glossy. Stir one-fourth of the whites into the batter, then fold in the remaining whites just until incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and level the top. Bake until the top is risen and crusty and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out almost clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 10 to 15 minutes.

To serve, top the cake with the poached pears and red wine sauce.

Er...I'll say this, I kind of screwed up in not boiling down the pear sauce a bit more (I ran out of time and had to go to work)- so I had saved the pears by putting them in a bowl with that sauce and covered.

...Trouble is, they had also released a lot of liquid from cooling in that covered bowl! SO - Drained the pears (and put all of the sauce in a small saucepan) and for a good 45 minutes, plus an extra cup of sugar - it does take a good bit of time for this to cook down, but it did get gooey enough...

Poured it on the cake, and not even a minute or two after, I got wine brittle on top when the sugars solidified

Well- if nothing else, this is a RICH chocolate cake that I know youll enjoy at any rate :3

Note to self: also, next time I do the sauce this way, make sure to get a large sheet of wax paper / parchment paper - then spoon the sauce in shapes on the paper to get hard, where they can make a nice decorative topping, the end