It's been a long time, my friends.
Our last real entry was about a certain birthday cake I made for myself on my 24th birthday. Since then we've come full circle and now I've got a recipe for my 25th birthday cake.
It's been a heck of a year, my friends -- so much has happened! Sarah got married to the love of her life, my sister had a son and he is the cutest baby in the entire world (in my totally unbiased opinion), and ten thousand other amazing things, large and small, have happened to the both of us.
But the busyness has somewhat subsided and we're back with a vengeance. Our initial return to the kitchen was a triumph, and Sarah and I are now happy to present to you this easy-as-pie cake.
This recipe won out over several other alternatives. I wanted to do something autumnal for an October birthday and I was torn between this and a Russian apple cake. Another friend of mine surprised me with that apple cake at a party, though, so I spent a while peeling and chopping pears and beating batter together. After the unique challenge of photographing rapidly-melting whipped cream was more or less successfully completed, we dug into big warm, delicious slices of bittersweet chocolate and pear cake.
For all my last birthday cake was easy to put together, this one is even easier. The batter came together more quickly than the last (I didn't have to pulverize almonds into flour this time!), it baked quickly, and the whipped cream only took a few seconds to pull together. We followed this recipe pretty closely and only deviated a little bit from the original instructions.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup white flour
1 stick of salted butter
1 tbsp baking powder
3 eggs at room-temperature
3/4 cup of sugar
3 pears, peeled and diced (I wanted bosc but used anjou because they are the only pears Target sold. What the hell, Target)
3/4 cup chocolate morsels
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. TIP: If you, like Sarah or I, don't have a sifter, you can make due with a colander. Just dump the stuff in the colander and shake it through. As another tip, this cake would be delicious with half whole wheat flour and half white flour.
Brown the butter. Put the butter in a saucepan on medium-low heat and cook it until the solids have started turning golden-brown. The butter will develop a delicious nutty smell when it's finished. Take care not to burn it -- few things will screw up a good cake more than burned butter. Stir it frequently and make sure you scrape the sides and bottom of the pan to prevent the solids from sticking. When it's done, move it off the flame but keep it warm.
In a larger bowl, whip the eggs until they're pale and thick. Unless you have immense forearms and are not easily tired, I suggest you use electric beaters. This step takes a long time. When the eggs are done, add the sugar and whip them some more (see why an electric beater is necessary?). When the mixture starts to lose volume, use a spatula to fold in about half the flour and baking powder. Then pour in about a third of the butter, then about a third of the flour mixture, etc., until all the flour and butter have been added. It is important not to overmix the batter at this point -- if you overwork it you'll get a dense, gross cake.
Pour the batter into a greased, floured pan. I used Sarah's springform pan, which was handy, but a regular cake pan should do just fine. Please note that the amount of batter will look kind of insignificant next to the amount of chocolate and pear you've got -- I even read back over the recipe to make sure I hadn't mis-measured something. Don't worry, just pour it in. Distribute the chocolate and pear over the surface of the batter and pop it in the oven. The batter will rise and envelop the toppings.
Bake until the cake is golden-brown and firm all the way through. It's a bit tricky to judge without sticking a knife in it -- the pears I had were pretty juicy and it took about an hour for ours to be done. Check it at 40 minutes and periodically after that.
Remove the cake from the pan when possible and let cool until just warm. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream.
FOR THE WHIPPED CREAM
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- Splash of vanilla extract
I didn't want a sweet whipped cream -- the cake was sweet enough -- but you can add sugar if you'd like. Combine the ingredients in a large bowl and whip them 'til it looks right. If the cream is room temperature it will only take a minute or two. For heaven's sake, use a big bowl and work up to full whipping speed. I started with a small bowl and sprayed heavy whipping cream everywhere, which prompted Sarah to arch her eyebrow at me and tell me that I was cleaning the kitchen when we were done.
I did. Even on my birthday.
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