Spiced Chocolate Pear and Hazelnut Torte - The Cook’s Pantry

Currently there are a lot of pears around, so it is a perfect time to make the most of them. I was watching The Cook’s Pantry this weekend when Courtney Roulston made a Spiced Chocolate, Pear and Hazelnut Torte - a perfect way to celebrate pears.
 

This moist torte contains both hazelnut and almond meal. When combined with dark chocolate, cardamom and cinnamon, and topped with sliced pears, you have a nutty, winning dessert.

To make this easy, gluten free dessert, you will need:

120g chopped dark chocolate, melted

2/3 cup olive oil

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup hazelnut meal

1/2 cup almond meal

3 eggs, separated

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cardamom 

2 pears, cored and thinly sliced

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease and line a 9” fluted tart pan with a removable base.

In a large bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients and the egg yolks with the olive oil, then fold through the melted chocolate.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold the whites through the chocolate mixture.

Scrape the mixture into the prepared tart pan and smooth the top. Arrange the sliced pears on top.

Bake the torte in the oven for 45-50 minutes or until cooked through. Remove the torte from the oven and allow it to cool in the tin before slicing and serving.

TWD - Pecan Brown Sugar Crack -Ups

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe comes from the land of pre-COVID, being a cookie designed to share. The recipe is for Pecan-Brown Sugar Crack-Ups, so named because you are meant to crack off pieces from the single large cookie.

Toasted pecans are whizzed up with brown sugar, butter, flour, eggs, sugar and salt to form a cookie that is warm and earthy in flavour. I wasn’t sharing, so I made a quarter of the recipe. My cookies were probably a bit thick as a result of the pan I used, but they suited me.

To see what the other Dorie’s Cookies bakers made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Simple Apple Cake - Helen Goh’s recipe

 Happy Saturday everyone! I hope that you are having a relaxing weekend.  It’s freezing here today,  but perfect weather for cooking and baking because it warms up the house.

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day. My mum is too far away to bake for, but that did not stop me from baking Helen Goh’s gorgeous Simple Apple Cake to celebrate the day.

This lovely cake is soft and moist on the inside, studded with apple pieces, and has a nice brown crust on the outside that is coated with a citrus glaze. The cake also has a hint of rose flavour. I thought it was delightful.

If you would like to make this cake for someone special in your life, you will need:

2 small apples

Zest of 1 lemon

225g plain flour

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of sofa

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

100g sour cream (I subbed Greek yoghurt)

160g sugar

150ml olive oil

2 teaspoons rosewater

Glaze

1 cup icing sugar 

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon orange juice (I just used all lemon juice)

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease and line a 20cm round springform pan.

Peel and core the apples and chop into 1cm pieces. Toss the apple pieces with the lemon zest and set aside.

Sift the flour, ginger, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt into a large bowl.

In a jug, whisk together the eggs and sour cream. Add the sugar, olive oil and rosewater and whisk until smooth.

Fold the apples through the flour, then pour over the egg mixture and fold together until just combined. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, and bake in the oven for 55-60 minutes or until cooked through.

Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool for 10 minutes in the tin.

In the meantime, make the glaze while mixing together all of the glaze ingredients until smooth - it should be thick but pourable, so add more lemon juice if necessary.

Pour the glaze over the warm cake and spread over the top of the cake with a metal spatula. Allow the cake to cool completely in the tin before unmoulding. 

Serve the cake decorated with edible flowers.

TWD - Chocolate Chip Not Quite Mandelbrot

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Chocolate Chip Not Quite Mandelbrot. The name is derived from the fact that Mandelbrot is meant to contain almonds - these biscuits do not.

Like biscotti, these biscuits are twice baked. I made my own modifications - I used a gluten free flour mix, a mixture of Reese’s pieces and chocolate chips, and chocolate ginger sugar in place of cinnamon sugar on top.

These biscuits were quite tasty - way tastier than commercial almond bread.

To see what everyone else made this week and their thoughts in it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.