Ingredients
- Fruit Topping
- 1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar
- 3 firm but ripe pears, peeled, cored, and each cut into 12 slices (1 pound prepped)
- Cake
- 1/4 cup (2 ounces) unsalted butter
- 4 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
- 1 cup (5 ounces) all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup (1 ounce) unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa powder
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 3/4 cup (5 1/4 ounces) granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup whole milk
Preparation
Step 1
Butter a 9-inch round baking pan.
To make the caramel layer, sprinkle the sugar in a large skillet and shake the pan to distribute the sugar into as even a layer as possible. Over medium heat, allow the sugar to dissolve without stirring until the edges begin to melt and turn a caramel color. Gently pull those areas toward the middle of the pan, again without over-stirring. The sugar will continue to melt and turn an amber color pretty quickly. As it does, begin to swirl the pan to get all the sugar incorporated and melting. In about five or so minutes, you’ll have a finished caramel that should be a nice, dark amber color (you will need to watch it carefully this whole time as you don’t want it to burn). At this point, you can either add a little unsalted butter, 1-2 tablespoons, to make it a little richer, or just pour it as is into the cake pan. Allow it to harden, which takes roughly 15 to 20 minutes.
As mentioned above, if you’d like some further advice on making a simple caramel, we recommend checking out a post by David Lebovitz and a handy video tutorial by Chef Gordon Ramsay. Our caramel instructions are a mix of each.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
To make the cake, place the butter and chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat and melt, stirring occasionally. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl. Transfer the melted chocolate to a mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer and add the sugar. Using a handheld mixer with beaters or a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture in three additions alternating with the milk in two additions, beginning and ending with the flour and scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the middle of the oven for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the cake bounces back slightly when touched. Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes, run a sharp knife around the edge to help loosen, then invert the cake onto a plate, leaving the pan on top of the cake for 5 minutes before you remove it. It might be necessary to tap on the cake bottom a little to further loosen the cake. Serve the cake warm, topped with a small dollop of Chantilly cream or a scoop of Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. Enjoy!
Notes:
As we’ve said, but it bears mentioning again, we’ve not had a whole lot of experience making caramels, and maybe you can get a nice one following the original recipe, but we felt that the directions were just too vague and unhelpful to a newcomer. I was pretty excited to get the cookbook Rustic Fruit Desserts, and there’s so much in it that we want to try, but now I feel cautious about the entire book after experiencing problems with the two recipes we’ve tried so far. I think that a lot of recipes are merely guides that are fun to play with and adapt in different ways, but it just seems to me that making a caramel via a published book should have been fool proof.
When we went to remove the cake from the pan, we went ahead and ran a sharp knife around the edges and it definitely wouldn’t have come out if we hadn’t. Again, something basic that seems as if it should have been advised in the original. It was also necessary to tap the cake pan a little on the bottom to help loosen it further.
Again, if some of the pears stick to the cake pan, just slide a butter knife under them and place them back on the cake. No harm done!
You might have some left-over pear slices. Enjoy munching on those while you cook.