Winter time calls for one thing: comfort food. For me, Chocolate and Spiced Pears are the ultimate definition of winter dessert. How else to enjoy a cold winter night but with a Spiced Pear Chocolate Cake!?
I hadn’t shared a Chocolate recipe in way too long, and with lots of fresh Pears waiting to be eaten in my kitchen, there was only one solution: mix the two and make a cake!
The classic association of pears and chocolate always works so well together. It creates a deliciously indulgent spiced cake as a result!
Pears are always great to bake with as they become delicious sweet and soft when baked or poached, just like in my Almond Pear Cake or in my Spiced Pear Muffins!
Ingredients
There are two sets of ingredients to make this Chocolate Cake with Spiced Pears. First, you will need to poach the pears in a spiced syrup. Then it will be time to prepare the simple chocolate cake.
Spiced Poached Pears:
- Pears
- Water
- Lemon or Lime Juice
- Brown Sugar
- Your favourite Spice Mix – I used Cinnamon and Star Anise
There are many other spices that you can use too – cloves, ginger or cardamon – but I decided to keep it simple for this recipe. Because the Spiced Pears are associated with the chocolate – an ingredient with a really strong taste – you don’t want to over-do it with too many spices for the pears.
Double Chocolate Cake:
- Dark Cooking Chocolate
- Full Cream Milk
- Butter
- Brown Sugar
- Eggs
- Plain Flour
- Baking Powder
- Salt
- Cinnamon
- Chocolate Chips
How to Poach Pears
If there is one easy dessert to make with pears, it’s Spiced or Poached Pears. You really don’t need a recipe for it; throw some pears into a liquid with some spices, let them slowly poach and ta-dah! Your dessert is ready!
There are many ways you can poach pears, the most common ones being in either a syrup (water + sugar) or alcohol (usually Red Wine). The French love to add a warm Chocolate Sauce on top in a dessert called “Poire Belle Helene“. I decided to transform the Chocolate Sauce into a Double Chocolate Cake because…why not!
Check out my recipe for Spiced Red Wine Poached Pears too!
To poach the pears for this recipe, follow these instructions:
- Make a simple syrup with Water, Brown Sugar, Lime (or Lemon) Juice and your choice of Spices (I to use Cinnamon and Start Anise)
- Heat up the syrup in a pot on medium heat. In the meantime, peal your pears.
- When the syrup is starting to boil, add the full pears and make sure they are covered by the syrup. Reduce the heat to a simmer and leave to poach for 15 to 20 minutes. The pears should be soft but still hold their shape.
Spicy Pear Chocolate Cake
Compared to other chocolate cake recipe that may require a little bit more skills – like my Chocolate Loaf Cake recipe – this one is a very easy one to make. There is nothing fancy or crazy about this recipe, just your basic chocolate cake ingredients.
But don’t worry, this cake is still a very special one… First, I didn’t just use chocolate once but twice because hey, a ‘single‘ chocolate cake isn’t as exciting as a ‘double’ one, right!?
On top of using melted chocolate in the batter, I also added some small Dark Chocolate Chips. They brought an extra delicious gooey chocolaty texture to the cake!
But what make this Chocolate Cake really special is the use of Cinnamon Powder in the batter. Using a spice directly in the batter is really what makes this cake shine; it brings it a deliciously fragrant taste!
And there you go – you have all the elements to make an amazing dessert! A super rich chocolate cake with spicy notes AND soft, melt-in-your-mouth, spiced poached pears! A real winner…
For this cake, I didn’t use my usual Round Springform Baking Pan but a Quiche Pan. Although not usually used for this purpose, I find this baking pan to be a nice alternative to more traditional cake pans.
If you have no idea what I am talking about, a Quiche Pan is a mix between a Round Cheesecake Pan and a Tart Pan. It pretty much has the height of a Cheesecake Pan but with the Ribbed Edges of a Tart Pan. So fun to use to make pretty cakes!
The one I have also have a removable bottom tray which makes it so convenient and avoid having your cake stuck in the pan.
More Pear Desserts:
Double Chocolate Pear Cake
Ingredients
Spiced Pears
- 3 medium size Pears
- 2 litres (8 cups) Water
- 60 ml (1/4 cup) Lime Juice
- 2 tbsp. Brown Sugar
- 1 teasp. Cinnamon Powder
- 1 dozen Star Anise Pods
Double Chocolate Cake
- 130 gr (4,5 oz) Dark Cooking Chocolate
- 100 ml (1/3 cup) Full Fat Milk – warmed up
- 120 gr (1/2 cup) Unsalted Butter, melted
- 30 gr (3 tbsp.) Brown Sugar
- 3 Eggs
- 120 gr (3/4 cup) Plain Flour
- 1 teasp. Baking Powder
- 1 pinch Salt
- 1 teasp. Cinnamon Powder
- 20 gr Dark Chocolate Chips
Instructions
Spiced Pears
- Peal the Pears, cut them in half and remove the cores.
- In a medium size pot, bring the Water to a boil. Add the Brown Sugar and Lime Juice.When the Brown Sugar has dissolved, add the Cinnamon Powder and the Star Anise Pods.
- Add the Pears Halves into the boiling water then reduce the heat to a simmer.Let the Pears poach for 15 to 20 minutes – you want them to soften but to be still hard enough to cut.
- Remove the Pears from the Syrup and set aside to cool down on a towel. Keep a little bit of the Syrup to glaze the cake.
Double Chocolate Cake
- Preheat your oven on 180′
- Place the Dark Chocolate in a heat-proof bowl and cover with the hot Milk. Stir with a spatula until the chocolate has melted. Set aside to cool.
- In a large bowl, mix the Melted Butter and Brown Sugar, then add the Eggs. Pour in the melted chocolate and stir well until fully incorporated.
- Sift in the Flour, Baking Powder, Salt and Cinnamon Powder. Mix well until completely smooth.Add the Chocolate Chips and quickly mix. Pour the cake batter in the baking pan.
- Place the pears on a cutting board, their cut half down. Carefully cut long strips along the length of the half pears, making sure not to cut their top part to keep the strips together.
- Place the cut pears on the cake batter and bake for 20 minutes.
- When fully baked, remove the cake from the oven and pour a little bit of the poaching syrup with the spices to soak the cake. Let the cake cool down before removing from the pan.
