I know I keep saying this but this is the easiest and quickest cake you can possibly make and even comes with a twist! I sort of made up the recipe myself as I was looking for something suitable for the pre-Christmas time. Again you can use other fruits but I find pears and also cherries are the best match.
Chocolate and Pear Spice Cake
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Baking time: 20 – 30 minutes at 180-200 °C
Number of servings (yield): 10
Ingredients:
- 5 Eggs
- 375g sugar (tastes better if you use half brown)
- 4 tbsp cocoa
- 450ml fluid (I use a mixture of half rum and half milk)
- 450g flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 300g melted but cooled down butter
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- Spices: (Now I use a pinch of each, again this depends on how hot you actually want it.) Black pepper, cinnamon, chilli powder (I used the medium or hot one), ground nutmeg, ground cardamom, ground cloves, ginger (if you have mince some fresh one, otherwise a good ground one will do)
- 3-4 ripe pears
- 1 tbsp drops of fresh lemon juice
Instructions:
- Start with beating the eggs, sugar and butter until it’s creamy and fluffy. Add all the other ingredients and mix well.
- Slice the pears, remove the core (I tend not to peel them because it takes away a lot of taste, just wash them thoroughly) and sprinkle with the lemon juice.
- Use a deep baking tray (medium size) and line it with baking paper. Spread half of the batter onto the tray, put down the pear slices in rows and cover with the remaining batter.
- Bake for 20-30 minutes until not gooey anymore when doing the stick test.
- When still hot drizzle a bit of rum or fruit schnapps on top to give it that extra flavour. You can also dust it with a bit of icing sugar once it is cool, just to give it that Christmassy feeling.
I made this cake for work and it goes down a treat. I dare telling them that it contains booze.
Hi, just a quick question from a non-baker. What’s the benefit of melting the butter then cooling it?
It creates a firmer/denser dough. A sponge for example requires the butter to be creamed, which creates more bubbles and therefore a very light consistency. This one tho is still quite light probably because of the eggs.