Chocolate, hazelnut and pear mini cakes

The first time I made this chocolate, pear and hazelnut cake (in its original, non-mini cakes form) a couple of years ago, I was a bit skeptical. I had never been a fan of soggy fruit in desserts. In my mind, they tampered with the textural bliss that xxx (insert dessert name here) already had. For instance, why would you want to ruin the spongy deliciousness of a slice of cake by throwing in a bunch of slimy raisins?

Mind you, I don’t oppose textural contrast on every front (pudding-wise). A case in point: the eggy creaminess of a clafoutis, dotted with berries. Or another: boozy plums and creamy custard baked in a pastry shell. Done properly, the art of combining the flavours and textures of these ingredients together is, probably, one of the merits of humanity. However, two years ago, when I bought an issue of Good Food magazine and found this cake staring at me from the small page of its pudding supplement, I didn’t take fruit in dessert very lightly.

Scarred from a very young age by suspiciously sweet strands of so-called strawberries in yogurt pots and unsure of the sliminess of raisins-based puddings (which my sister has always refused to eat), I thought fruit and dessert were best left separate. But then time passed, and I found myself surrounded by cookbooks, food magazines and food blogs unanimously saying the exact opposite, and adding that pear and chocolate were a match made in heaven.

And who am I to disagree without giving it a go? And of course, once the cake had come out of the oven and I, tentatively but resolutely, tried a thin slice and most defeinitely did not disagree.

Those two ingredients are indeed made to be enjoyed together. The aroma of the toasted hazelnuts enhances both pears and chocolate, smoothing the latter and giving a further edge to the former. Not only has this cake the merit of introducing a more confident me to the world of fresh fruit based desserts (we’ll leave dried fruit for another time, yeah?), but is also so ridiculously simple to make that you’ll have to stop yourself from casually loading your trolley with the three main ingredients every time you go for a shop. 

Adapted from this Good Food recipe. These quantities make between 4 and 6 small cakes (depending how much batter you choose to use) or a small cake. These quantities also yield a 20 cm round cake.

Ingredients

butter and cocoa powder, to grease the tins

85 gr dark chocolate

90 gr unsalted butter

1 tsp cocoa powder

1 tbsp brandy

pinch of sea salt

85 gr dark brown sugar

3 eggs, separated

85 gr hazelnuts, toasted and ground in a food processor

4 small, ripe pears

icing sugar and cocoa powder, for dusting

Grease and dust with cocoa between 4 and 6 small loaf tins or small round cake tins. I used 4 loaf tins and have to say that we could probably have done with 5 or 6, as each cake was quite big once it had time to rise in the oven. Preheat your oven at 170°C.

Begin by setting a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Put the butter, chocolate and cocoa powder in the bowl and let it melt slowly. Once this is done, take the bowl away from the heat, add salt and brandy and set aside to cool.

In another bowl, mix the egg yolks with the sugar for about 5 minutes, until the mixture is creamy and even in colour and texture. At this point, the chocolate mixture should be cool enough to add to the egg yolks and sugar mixture. Add the ground hzelnuts and mix until evenly combined.

In yet another bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, then fold energetically half of these into the chcolate and hazelnut mixture. Gently fold in the second half of the egg whites.

If you are using 4 tins, spoon 3 heaped tablespoons in each. (If you are using more tins, try to adjust the quantities accordingly). Peel and core the pears and add one of each in the middle of the tin, makign sure it is standing upright.

Bake for 30-35 minutes (but start checking after 25) until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack, then unmould and serve with a dusting of icing sugar and cocoa powder.

Scones with gooseberries and elderflower compote

My first ever job was grape picking. I was fifteen, lived near a wine making area and wanted some money and the feeling of being more like an adult than a like a child. I worked there only for two weeks, school starts in mid-September so students usually only work for the first few weeks of vendemmia, the harvesting. Some of you may have harvested grape, or other fruits, before. If you haven’t, let me warn you: it’s physically draining. The thought of spending a few days picking fresh fruit for a bit of easy money sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? The sun is shining, the fruit is ripe and fragrant and you are part of a chatty group of people who laugh and joke.

The reality is that, even as late as September, the sun is scorching, there is no breeze to speak of, the fruit is ripe, sticky and surrounded by thousands of insects of various kinds who start buzzing around as soon as you touch their lunch. As far as the people are concerned, this is what happens: half of your group is made up of students from school or university, and half is made up of retired men and women from the surrounding area who every year take this job to add a bit to their pension income. I might be a bit biased when I say this, but they (the pensioners) seemed to believe that we (the students) couldn’t do the job properly and always looked at us with some disdain, as if we weren’t worthy enough. They worked along their vines, we along ours. They knew the managers, we didn’t. Receiving the cheque and seeing the amount of money I had earned (not very much) was the highlight of the job.

After that experience, I swore to myself that I would never, ever grape pick again. Up until now I have kept that promise and I think it’s fair to say that as long as I live in England there are little chances of me going back to grape harvesting. What I did do, however, was go to a pick-your-own farm near where we live called Greenbank Farm and pick some gooseberries. I felt a bit guilty after my last post, in which I went on and on about how the British weather makes stone fruit, especially apricots and peaches, impossible to grow and how imported fruit lack any flavour to speak of. As it turns out, it only takes some plump gooseberries for me and Britain to make peace. What the British isles lack in stone fruit, they more than make up for it in berries. Therefore, I made scones. Not only scones and cream are the quintessential British teatime treat (and it is a treat: this is the second time I’ve had them. In my entire life!), but for the first time I’ve also had the pleasure of eating gooseberries, another one of those ingredients that in my mind automatically associate with England, along with rhubarb, parsnips, Marmite and, *gulp*, gravy granules!

There was something so peaceful and calm about slowly making our way through the rows, choosing which branches to leave and which to lighten up of their fruits. Despite the insects, which did remind me a bit of grape picking, the heat and fruit-induced stickiness were nowhere near the levels encoutered in the vineyars all those years ago. We also spent a lot less time at Greenbank Farm than what I used to do during my glorious grape-picking career: it didn’t take 8 hours to fill four small baskets of strawberries, gooseberries and blackcurrants. The strawberries were delicious and we ate them fresh and finished them not long after picking. The gooseberries ended up puréed and mixed with elderflower cordial.We have some left in the freezer and I am contemplating having them alongside grilled mackerel. As for the blackcurrants, you’ll have to wait and see.

Fish, chips & gelato branches out: Fish, chips & gelato has decided to invade the food blogosphere! We have joined Twitter, so follow us there for your daily dose of food-related thoughts and behind-the-scenes photos. If that wasn’t enough, FC&G is now on Foodgawker as well, in the attempt to cause a global, mass drooling over clear examples of foodporn. Hope you like!

Compote adapted from a Good Food’s Gooseberry, elderflower and vanilla fools recipe, scones recipe adapted from a National Trust recipe, via The Guardian.

Ingredients for the compote

300 gr fresh or frozen gooseberries, topped and tailed

30 gr caster sugar

3 tbsp elderflower cordial

Ingredients for the scones (makes about 15)

350 gr plain flour

pinch of salt

2 scant tbsp cream of tartar

1 scant tbsp bicarbonate of soda

100 gr butter, softened at room temperature

120 ml milk

to serve: clotted cream*

Start by making the compote. Put the gooseberries and the sugar in a small pot and warm up on a gentle heat. When the gooseberries start to open up, they will release a lot of liquid and you’ll think it’ll never work. Not so! Gently mash up the fruit with the back of a fork or a potato masher and leave on a gentle heat for about 5 more minutes. Turn the heat off and stir in the elderflower cordial. Leave to cool.

Turn on the oven to 190°C and prepare two baking sheets lined with baking parchment.

Sift the flour together with salt, cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda in a big bowl. With cold hands, rub in the butter until the mixture resembles that of thick breadcrumbs. Work very quickly. Now pour the milk in and mix quickly until you have a dough-like texture. Flour the board and with the help of a rolling pin roll the dough until it’s about 1.5 cm in height. Cut into rounds of about 6 cm diametre, arrange them on the baking sheets and bake for about 15-20 mins, until golden.

Leave to cool for at least 10 minutes before tucking in, but don’t leave them until the enxt day because they don’t keep very well.

*Look, you can even make your own!