Chocolate Pear cake

The chocolate and pear cake is one of the first cakes I started making. I still remember, I was in Milan in Piazza del Carmine where there was a little shop that sold sweets of its own production even in slices. In the window was this inviting cake with the ingredients on a cardboard. I bought a few slices and… I wasn’t wrong, fantastic! So I tried to do it again and after a few attempts in balancing the ingredients I got a result that satisfied me, and it was definitely appreciated by my friends!

Ingredients

Pastry

• 300 gr.plain flour 
• 100 gr. Sugar
• 120 gr. Butter
• 2 tbsp bitter cocoa
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 salt outlet

For the filling

• 5  pears ( bosc, concorde)
• 50 gr sugar
• juice of half a lemon is the one to wet the pears

Preparation

1. Place the flour on a worktop.
2. Make a well and in the middle  add the sugar, cocoa, salt, yeast, eggs and butter at room temperature and cut into small pieces
3. Knead quickly with your hands, until you get a smooth and firm paste
4. Form a ball, wrap in foil and leave to rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes
5. In the while peel the pears and cut them into thin slices; wet with a little lemon juice to prevent them from blackening.
6. Transfer 2 pears to a saucepan, add the 50 grams of sugar and lemon juice. Leave to cook until the liquid is evaporated and the jam has formed (about 20 minutes)
7. Roll out half the dough with a rolling pin, to create the base of the cake, transfer to a cake tin lined with parchment paper or buttered and dusted with flour
8. Place the jam in the bottom and cover with the sliced pears
9. Roll out the remaining shortcrust pastry and create strips of dough, or cut it with the shapes you like the most, for example hearts or flowers and place on top of the pears
10. Bake in a ventilated oven already hot at 180 degrees for 30/35 minutes. If the pears release too much water, cook the cake longer.