cacao & pere is the new black

Sabato mattina mi sono svegliata tardi e ho deciso di riempire il (poco) rimanente della mattinata a cucinare. Era ora di pranzo, certo, ma la scorsa settimana ho comprato quattro splendide pere biologiche ormai perfettamente mature.

Ho scartabellato il web fino a trovare una ricetta lituana e, grazie a Google Translate e un po’ di fortuna, sono arrivata a questo plum-cake bello e buono. Buono davvero!

english text

Saturday morning I woke up late and I decided to spend the (few) remaining morning hours cooking. It was lunch time, I know, but past week I had bought four gorgeous organic pears, and they were just perfectly ripe.

I have skimmed through the web until I found a Lithuanian recipe. Then, thanks to Google Translate and some luck, I managed to bake this good looking, good tasting cake. So good!

Cocoa and pear plum-cake

• 180 g softened butter
• 150 g cane sugar
• 200 g flour (pastry flour or “00” type)
• 50 g bitter powdered cocoa
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 200 ml heavy cream
• 3 eggs
• 1 pinch of salt
• 3 small pears
• 1/2 glass of milk

Beat the egg whites until stiff (if added, a pinch of salt can ease your job), then set them apart in the fridge, you will add them later. Beat half of the sugar with butter until pale and creamy. Beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar and add to the butter cream.

Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder, then add to the dough. Stir in cream and milk, then gently add the beaten egg whites: the resulting dough will be thick and smooth.

Butter a plum-cake pan, then rinse the pears and pull out the cores and seeds; don’t cut the pears, just help yourself with a knife, cutting a hole on the bottom of the fruit and digging out the core.

Pour the dough in the pan, then set the three entire pears as shown in the recipe picture.

Bake at 170°C for an hour, checking with a toothpick (if it comes out clean and non-sticky, then the cake is baked).

Serve sprinkled with confectioners sugar, but beware! Do not extract the cake from the pan until completely cooled, or it will crack apart.