Desserts recipes

Chocolate and pears cake

Torta al cioccolato e pere

Ingredients for 4 servings:
For the short pastry:
165 gr white flour
125 gr butter
30 gr sugar
30 gr almonds
Salt

For the filling:
4-5 ripe pears
90 gr butter
45 gr cocoa powder
200 gr brown sugar
45 gr white flour
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the decoration:
Icing sugar

Ready in: about 70 minutes

How to prepare the recipe: "Chocolate and pears cake":
Take a bowl and pour inside the flour, the sugar, the minced almonds, 3-4 tbsp of water and a pinch of salt. Add butter a piece at a time and knead until you get a dough very crumbly. Go on kneading the dough with a fork, then put the dough on a pastry board and knead with your hands. Roll the dough with transparent film and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Roll out the short pastry, line a baking tin and let it rest in the fridge. Skin the pears, remove the seeds and cut vertically in for 4 pieces. Remove the baking tin from the fridge and using a fork riddle the base and sprinkle with 2 tbsp of sugar. Place the pears on the short pastry base and bake at 180 °C for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it cool.
In the meantime, melt the butter and the cocoa in a pan, mixing well. Whip the egg with the brown sugar, add the butter and cocoa mixture and sieve the flour on the surface. Mix and add the vanilla extract. Pour the mixture on the pears and level with a spatula. Bake for 15 minutes more, and then let it cool on a wire rack. Sprinkle the cake with icing sugar and serve.

Preparation time: 40 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: medium

Chef's advice
If you like, you can use finely crumbled amaretti instead of almonds, adding grated organic orange zest in order to have a pleasant and unusual contrast of flavors.