Chocolate Pear Pudding Cake

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:

1. Preheat oven to 400ºF. Grease an 8 inch square pan with butter.
2. Drain pears and arrange them in the base of the dish.
3. In a food processor, blitz butter and sugar till smooth. Add in eggs, roughly beaten and vanilla extract and blitz till combined.
4. Lastly, add in flour, cocoa, baking powder and soda and blitz till you have a soft and smooth batter.
5. Spread the batter over the pears and bake in the oven for 25 – 30 minutes.
6. 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!