Dark Chocolate, Pear and Pistachio Cake

A comforting autumnal Dark Chocolate, Pear, and Pistachio Cake, served with drizzlings of chocolate ganache and honey caramelised pears.  Jump to Recipe 

These two weeks off university are flying by, much faster than normal lecture-filled weeks seem to, and I feel like I really have not accomplished much. Besides a couple of brunch missions, a bit of catch up uni work, and extra clinical skills tutorials yesterday, I really don’t know where my time is going. Then again, maybe that is just what a break is meant to be. I just wish I had good kitchen access to make some of the beautiful recipes I have seen on other blogs lately! These Greek Chicken Souvlaki from Erin Made This, this Feijoa & Pear Anzac Crumble from From The Kitchen, and this Lavender Honey & Raspberry Rhubarb Galette by Half Baked Harvest are particularly tempting..

Anyway, today I have another recipe for you chocolate lovers out there. Rich and dense but not your standard chocolate cake, this recipe is a winner: dark chocolate, pear, and pistachio cake, served with drizzlings of chocolate ganache and honey caramelised pears.

I first made it sometime last year for a birthday, then again over Easter when we were in Queenstown. The crisp autumnal mornings and evenings and rusty yellowing and orange leaves covering the ground seemed fitting for this cake: comforting, rich chocolate batter with both grated and larger tender chunks of pears adding moisture and texture and the coarsely crumbed pistachios adding a hint of nuttiness, topped with silky lashings of ganache and sliced pears slowly caramelised with manuka honey and butter. Perfect served with vanilla ice cream or greek yogurt to offset the chocolately sweetness.

From the Queenstown experience, I refined the recipe and photographed it in Auckland in the couple of hours before I left for the airport back to Melbourne, using a smaller sized cake tin, drizzling the ganache rather than covering the whole cake, and adding grated pear to the mix. Too much ganache can overwhelm the pear and pistachio flavours that add depth to the cake, so I found that a bit of artful (or random!) drizzling with the end of a fork gave just the right amount.

Looking back at photos like this does make me miss my kitchen in Auckland!  This recipe is adapted from The Gourmet Traveller and the Little and Friday Celebrations cookbook.

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Dark Chocolate, Pear and Pistachio Cake

Prep Time

45 mins

Cook Time

45 mins

Total Time

1 hr 30 mins

 

Adapted from The Gourmet Traveller and Little and Friday Celebrations.

Servings: 10 -12

Author: Claudia Brick

Ingredients

• 200 g chocolate , roughly chopped
• 3/4 cup pistachios
• 150 g unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 pear , grated
• 1 pear , peeled and cut into 1cm chunks

Chocolate ganache

• 1/3 cup cream
• 100 g chocolate , finely chopped

Caramelised pears

• 1 tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• 2 pears , cut lengthways into 1-1.5cm wide slices, leaving the stalk intact (see picture)
• 2 tbsp manuka honey

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 160° and grease and line and 20cm round springform cake tin.
2. Place the pistachios in a food processor and whiz until roughly chopped . Add the chopped chocolate and blitz until coarse crumbs form (see photo above).
3. In a large bowl or a cake mixer, beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Sift in the flour and baking powder and fold in to just combine.
5. Fold in the pistachio-chocolate crumbs. Fold in the grated and chunked pear to just combine.
6. Pour into prepared baking tin.
7. Bake for 45-55 min, or until skewer comes out clean (a bit of melted chocolate might come out, but you really just want no actual batter on the skewer). Leave to cool in the tin.

Chocolate Ganache

1. In a small pot, gently heat the cream until it almost comes to the boil. Add the finely chopped chocolate and make sure it is covered by cream. Leave to stand for 5 min. Whisk with a fork until smooth. Leave to cool on the bench (do not put in the fridge!).

Caramelised Pears

1. In a medium saucepan, heat the butter and caster sugar until sugar dissolves - 1-2 min.
2. Add pears to frying pan (see photo) and cook for 10-20 minutes or until softened. You can test this by poking the prongs of a fork through - there should be very little resistance. Flip the pear slices over half way through so both sides are nice and caramelised.
3. Add honey to coat the pears and continue to cook for 3 minutes.
4. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Assembly

1. Turn the cake out onto a cake stand or plate. Drizzle the ganache over the top (you may want to warm it up or add a little more cream if you need it to be more runny).
2. Arrange the pears on top of the ganache, or simply serve a slice of pear with each piece of cake.
3. Serve the cake with vanilla ice cream or greek yogurt. Enjoy!