Читать книгу Have Your Cake and Eat it Too - Sally Bee - Страница 15

Chocolate Cake with Spicy Pears

This butter- and flour-free cake has a lovely light texture and great flavour. Make sure you use best quality plain dark chocolate, as this will contain less fat and sugar and gives a better flavour. Cook the pears a day ahead and chill in the refrigerator overnight. The cake is best eaten on the day it is baked.

SERVES 4

For the cake

low-fat spread, for greasing

110g (4oz) caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp for dusting

1 tbsp plain flour, for dusting

110g (4oz) bitter dark chocolate, chopped

4 eggs, separated

70g (2½oz) cornflour

icing sugar, sifted, for dusting

low-fat crème fraîche, to serve

For the spicy pears

85g (3oz) caster sugar

2 tbsp clear, runny honey

4 cloves

10 black peppercorns

1 cinnamon stick

1 x 2.5cm (1in) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced

thinly pared zest of 1 orange

290 ml (10fl oz) Muscat wine

juice of ½ lemon

4 firm, ripe pears

8 cloves

1 Start by making the pears. Put 150ml (5fl oz) water, the sugar and honey into a large heavy saucepan and mix together over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved completely. Bring to the boil, then add the cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, ginger and orange zest and cook for 10 minutes, uncovered, or until slightly thickened and syrupy.

2 Allow the syrup to cool slightly, then mix in the wine and lemon juice.

3 Peel the pears, leaving the stems intact and stud each pear with 2 cloves. Immediately submerge the pears into the syrup to prevent discolouring. Bring slowly to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the pears to cool completely in the syrup. Refrigerate overnight.

4 The next day, make the cake. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.

5 Grease a 23cm (9in) cake tin with low-fat spread and line the base with a disc of greaseproof paper. Dust lightly with the 1 tablespoon sugar and then the 1 tablespoon flour, tapping out the excess.

6 Put the chocolate into a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure the base of the bowl isn’t touching the water, and stir continuously until the chocolate has melted, then remove from the heat.

7 In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with all but 1 tablespoon of the caster sugar until pale and creamy. Mix the cornflour into the egg yolk mixture, then pour in the melted chocolate and mix thoroughly.

8 Using a free-standing electric mixer, whisk the egg whites with the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar until shiny and stiff. Using a large metal spoon, fold the egg whites into the egg and chocolate mixture and pour into the prepared tin.

9 Bake the cake in the centre of the oven for 20–25 minutes. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

10 Lightly dust the cake with icing sugar just before serving with the well-chilled pears and a scoop of low-fat crème fraîche.