WebliminalBlog

We first had this great cake at Al di La in Brooklyn. We’ve been there twice and had it each time. It is a real treat.

Mark Bittman has a recipe for the cake in Mark Bittman Takes on America’s Chefs. We have made it at home several times and each time the company raves about it.

Ingredients

• 8 TBLS (1 stick) butter, melted
• 1 cup of ground almonds (that’s what we use) or bread crumbs
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (Bittman calls for all-purpose flour)
• 1 TBLS baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 ripe pears, peeled and sliced into 1-inch pieces
• 3/4 cup (3 1/2 ounces) roughly chopped bittersweet chocolate (We use 1 bar of Trader Joe’s 73 % organic chocolate)

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Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Liberally butter a 9-inch springform pan. Add the ground almonds to the pan and swirl them around to coat the bottom and the sides. Tap out any excess ground almonds. Sift or stir the flour and baking powder together.
2. Put the eggs in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat them at high speed until they’re light, frothy, and pale yellow, 8 to 10 minutes. Then, with the machine still running, add the sugar in a slow steady stream. Beat for another minute, then beat in the flour-baking powder mixture and melted butter.
3. Pour the batter in the springform pan, arrange the pears in a single layer over the batter, and scatter the chocolate over the pears. Bake for 1 hour, or until a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. All the cake to cool for 10 minutes, unmold, and serve warm.

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