Ever had those days where you needed a dessert but had too little time? Well, yesterday was one of those days. Hubby and I had a wedding to attend in the afternoon but were also invited to dinner at a lovely couple’s place. Determined to bring along something home-baked for dessert and so started browsing through my collection of recipe books in the morning. I decided to try something from Nigella Express, a cookbook I rarely used. I had but one “small” problem. The recipe called for canned pears and we had none. Canned pears are not very common around here and I knew that I could probably only find it in the better supermarkets. I decided that I’d grab the pears after the wedding and attempt to finish the dessert in the short amount of time I had between the wedding and the dinner. This will definitely put Nigella Express to the test – could it deliver good food, fast?
I managed to find the pears in a decent supermarket after the wedding and proceeded home to start on the cake. I finished the preparations in about 20 minutes (my hubby helped to grease the pan and line the pears in the pan). The baking took another 30 minutes. The results? A delicious moist chocolate pudding cake that our host couple and their children (and ourselves of course) enjoyed. Definitely a recipe worth keeping.
Chocolate Pear Pudding Cake
(Makes one square cake, 8″ X 8″)
Adapted from Nigella Express
Ingredients:
1 large can pear halves in juice (About 465g drained weight)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup + 1 tbsp plain flour
1/4 cup cocoa (dutch-processed)
5 oz unsalted butter
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 eggs (room temperature)
2 tsp vanilla extract
Method:
- Preheat oven to 400ºF. Grease an 8 inch square pan with butter.
- Drain pears and arrange them in the base of the dish.
- In a food processor, blitz butter and sugar till smooth. Add in eggs, roughly beaten and vanilla extract and blitz till combined.
- Lastly, add in flour, cocoa, baking powder and soda and blitz till you have a soft and smooth batter.
- Spread the batter over the pears and bake in the oven for 25 – 30 minutes.
- Let it stand for 5 to 10 minutes and then cut into 9 slices. Serve with chocolate sauce or vanilla ice-cream.
Tip: To get a gooey molten centre in the cake, do not overbake!
