Pear and Chocolate Loaf

My internet is so slow right now so it's literally taking me 10 minutes to upload a single image! Ugh.
Anyway, yesterday I made this pear and chocolate loaf cake, and as you can see it turned out fab.

The pears in this cake provide a lot of moisture allowing the cake to crumble and melt in your mouth. I'm not able to eat this cake because of the ingredients in there, slash it's probably 1000 calories a bite but I did break a bit off, put it in my mouth to taste it then throw it in the bin! Lolol, don't judge. It just looked too good and I had to try it.

It's best to eat the cake when it's still warm from the oven because the chocolate becomes all gooey.

I got my mock exams back this week from school and I did sooo much better than I thought I would! I literally fell off my seat in every class when I looked at my % on my paper. Finally, all the hard work paid off.

But the downside to that is that now I'm feeling kind of slack because the years coming to an end and I feel so mentally and physically exhausted. It's not helping that my final week of school ends this week! Sniff, sniff.

I can't believe that this Friday I would have officially had my last day of school e v e r. I was so excited before but now all my sentimental memories of school are coming back and I'm so sad to leave.

 

 

I'm so sad to be leaving such an amazing group of girls that I've come to know so much about. But then again, uni next year means no more stresses of year 12 so I guess it's a bitter-sweet time.

This is such a beautifully rich, moist loaf cake and tastes really good with a glass of warm milk (says my mum). Pears, warm chocolate and milk. Perfect.
However, if I was going to do this cake again, I would throw in a bit of spice to complement the pears because pears and spice are pretty much made for each other.

Anyway fellow chums, bon appetit.


Pear and Chocolate Loaf
                       Makes 1 loaf - about 10 slices
                       Adapted from Poires Au Chocolat

1 small ripe pear
60g dark chocolate (around 70%)
125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
75g caster sugar
50g light brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
135g plain flour
1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of fine sea salt
1 tbsp plain yogurt

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F. Line a 8-9" loaf tin with baking parchment (or one of those liners) - fold the corners in so it fits. Peel the pear over a bowl, catching any juices. Chop into small cubes - you should have roughly 100-125g of chopped pear. Chop the chocolate up into rough chunks. Weigh the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.

Place the butter and both sugars into the bowl of a stand mixer (or use a mixing bowl and electric hand whisk) and cream them together until fluffy and pale. Scrape down the sides then add 1/4 of the beaten eggs and beat well until smooth. Add the next 1/4 and beat well. With the final two 1/4 additions, add a teaspoon of flour from the bowl too (this helps stop it curdling). Take the bowl off the mixer and scrape down.

Toss the pears and chocolate in the flour mixture (this helps them stay up in the mixture rather than sink as it bakes). Add to the mixer bowl and fold together until you have a stiff but uniform mixture. Add the yogurt and any leftover pear juices and fold again until combined. Spoon into the lined loaf tin and smooth over.

Add a sheet of baking parchment or foil over the top (to stop it overbrowning) then place into the oven. Bake for 30 minutes then remove the paper. Bake for a further 7 to 10 minutes until a cake tester can be removed cleanly from the centre. Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes then remove to a wire rack to cool - but do try a warm slice while the chocolate is gooey. The cake keeps in a tin for 2 days.