With chocolate and fruit, and possibly booze

My husband's birthday was last week, and I never had time to bake him a cake.

Yes, I bought him a giant red velvet cupcake with sprinkles from Sugar Sisters and took him out for Cajun food, which both delighted him. But there's something especially cozy about baking a cake for someone. Especially a cake with chocolate and fruit, and possibly booze.


I made a non-birthday cake this week, in my husband's honor, that used up a can of pears I had around and involved some more of the rich Scharffen Berger chocolate chunks in the pantry. The cake also gave me a reason to crack open the bottle of Uncle Jim's pear brandy that's been sitting around since December.

My witty Uncle Jim and his wife, the jubilant JoEllen, like to experiment with fruit-infused brandies and cordials. They take batches of fruits, let them soak in alcohol, and wait. If the result of their experiment is tasty and non-lethal, they pour the results in bottles with waxed corks, to distribute among friends and family.

Jim and JoEllen also throw a bang-up Christmas party every year, complete with dinner and an all-star cast of my cousins' adorable children. Uncle Jim slid up to me after dessert at last year's fete and said, quite solemnly, "Do you drink, you know, alcohol?" When I affirmed that I did drink, you know, alcohol, he loaded my arms with pear brandy and boozy strawberries and grapes.

Ok. I haven't mustered the courage to try the grapes, though my cousin Clayton nonchalantly munched his way through many of them at the party with no ill effect.

The brandy, though, quickly weaseled its way into my affections after I used it to create a chocolate sauce to top this cake. Now, I sip the pear brandy straight.

I found this chocolate pear cake recipe by rooting around on Google, and despite the many perils of user-submitted online recipes, I fell for this recipe by Kasha on recipezaar.com. It's a light little French cake, nothing special, but her instructions regarding pears caught my eye:

Carefully stir in cubed pears (count out six half-pears, eat any extras.)

I was going to do that anyway, but I almost giggled when I read that, indeed, the recipe basically calls for the cook to lick the beaters. Since I am diligent in my execution of any new recipe, I did eat the extra pears when I baked the cake. The husband and I split them with dinner.

Kasha recommends serving the cake with a dusting of creme anglaise, powdered sugar, or a dusting of cocoa.

petit and studded with caramelized pears

Chocolate pear cake, with brandied glaze
original recipe from Kasha at Recipezaar.com

Cake:

• 6 egg whites
• 3/4 cup unrefined cane sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 4 Tb. cocoa powder
• 1 tsp. baking powder
  
• 1 cup plus 2 Tb. all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 can canned pear halves, in natural juice, drained

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then spray a small bunt or other decorative molded pan with non-stick spray. Slice each pear half in half, lengthwise, and artfully arrange each slice on the bottom of the pan.

Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl, then set it aside. In a larger bowl, whip egg whites on a medium mixer speed for 30 seconds, then whip in the sugar and vanilla. The sugar-whites mixture should be fluffy, but not stiff. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients, then stir in the applesauce. To preserve the batter's light texture, mix the ingredients only until they are just incorporated.

Carefully spoon batter into the prepared pan, taking care not to disturb your neatly arranged pears. Bake the cake for about 45 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Our old, cantankerous gas oven cooked the cake in about 38 minutes, so keep an eye on it! Cool and unmold the cake on a cookie rack while you prepare the glaze.

Glaze:

• 1/3-1/2 cup fruit brandy (start with 1/3, and use more to adjust the thickness of the glaze)
  
• 1 Tb. cream
• 2/3 cup dark chocolate, (I used Scharffen Berger baking chunks)
  
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Gently melt the chocolate chunks using a double boiler on the stove top. Over a medium-low heat, whisk in the cream, then the brandy. Stir in the cinnamon. Turn off the stove, and let the sauce sit for several minutes, enough time for the sauce to cool and the cinnamon to showcase its flavor. Spoon the chocolate sauce directly on the pear cake, pouring extra sauce into any cracks or crevices you see. The cake serves 8 and keeps for about a week.

The next time I bake this cake, I think I will add a little more fat by substituting Greek yogurt for the applesauce. But the cake, as it's made, lacks for nothing. It's even better the next day, cold, for breakfast. The chocolate brandy sauce settles in the cake, snuggles around the soft pears, and makes each silky bite delectable.