Roasted Pear and Chocolate Cake with Strawberry Sauce..

Chocolate Chocolate everywhere and yet din't know what to make. It took me quite sometime thinking of what to prepare with chocolate and even when I decided on cake, there were hundreds of varieties to choose from, of which some of them were either too plain or others too complicated for me. So after much thought and apprehension, I finally got an idea from one and combined it with another. The original one is a Torte, which I found out means a cake which uses very less flour and lots of eggs and nuts. We are as it is having too much of a sugar dose these days, And too many eggs and nuts, would mean too rich a cake. So decided to skip that, but still go with the idea of using the pears. You can see the original Torte recipe here. Din't have any expectations or hopes for the final outcomes, but must say, I was pleased with it...The pears when roasted with the lemon juice and butter get a very nice flavour, and then ofcourse with combined with Chocolate cake, its yummmm...

So I send this as my entry for the JFI -Chocolate hosted by Deepz of LetzCook...Jihva series is brainchild of Indira of Mahanandi.

So, this here it is..

Ingredients

For the Roasted Pears:
Firm-ripe Pears - 2, such as Bartlett, Anjou or Bosch
Unsalted Melted Butter - 1 Tbl spn
Lemon juice - 1 tsp
Sugar - 2 tbl spn

For the Chocolate Cake:
All purpose flour - 2/3 cup (150 ml)
Cocoa powder - 1/4 cup (50 ml)
Brown Sugar - 1/3 cup (75 ml)
Baking powder - 1/4 tsp
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - a pinch
Egg - 1
Unsalted Melted Butter - 2 1/2 tbl spn
Sour Cream - 1/2 cup

For the Strawberry Sauce:
I used the frozen strawerry slices with sugar. Just heat about 2 tbl spns of this in a vessel on low heat, till it forms a sauce of required consistency.

For optional garnishing you can use :
Whipped Cream
Fresh Blackberries
Toasted Sliced Almonds
Fresh Mint

Method

Making the roasted pears :
- Preheat the oven to 450F.
- Wash and peel and core the pears. Cut them into halves lengthwise.
- Combine the butter and lemon juice together and coat the pears evenly on all sides with it.
- In a baking tray, place the pears with the cut side down and all in one layer. Sprinkle on top with sugar.
- Bake for about 15 mins keeping in center rack, than baste with the pan juices.
- Bake for another 5-10 mins till the pears become tender but still hold their shape.
- Remove from oven and let it cool completely.
- Reduce the oven heat to 350F now.

- Now, slice each pear half lengthwise into 3 wedges each.
- Grease a round baking dish with butter, and place each wedge with the cut side down all around at the bottom of the dish in a circular pattern. Leave about 1/2 inch gap from the edge of the dish. This ensures that the pears are perfectly set in the cake when baked( I forgot to do leave this gap).Fill in the extra spaces by cutting small pieces with the remaining pears and filling in between.

Now for the Cake batter:
- Mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt and the brown sugar in a mixing bowl.
- Combine the egg, melted butter and sour cream and whick till well blended. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

- Pour this batter evenly over the arranged pears mentioned above and slightly tap the dish so that the batter fills in between the empty spaces between the pear wedges.
- Keep in the oven at 350F and bake for about 45mins to 1hr or until skewer inserted comes out clean.
- Take out from oven, let it rest for sometime. Then invert the dish and take the cake out with bottom facing up.
- Cool completely and cut into pieces.
- Serve with strawberry sauce and mint.

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