Red Wine Chocolate Cake with Poached Pears

I originally made this cake a couple of years ago for a special occasion, and it was about time it made a comeback. Basically I love any recipes that include boozy fruit, and red wine is a favoured drink of choice in my family so it seems only natural that we love this cake. It's rich and decadent thanks to the olive oil and wine, but still a light texture, not dense like chocolate mudcake. Compared to other cakes it has the same amount of sugar too, or less if you consider that there's no icing to fuss with

It is ridiculously easy to make, luckily because the remaining class of wine from the bottle won't last long. You basically just mix everything together to bake, then make a syrup to pour over the cooled cake. 

Make sure you serve it with generous dollops of whipped cream, don't bother with yogurt or anything healthy, just cream for this number.  

Ingredients:  

• 255g (1 3/4 cups) plain flour, sifted
• 75g (3/4 cup) cocoa, sifted 
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 330g (1 1/2 cups) caster sugar
• 2 free range eggs
• 250ml (1 cup) buttermilk - I used homemade buttermilk - delicious. 
• 250ml (1 cup) red wine - Yes, 1 whole cup. 
• 125ml (1/2 cup) extra virgin olive oil - full flavoured olive oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Red wine poached pears (I recommend doubling the syrup recipe so that you have extra syrup for serving) 

• 110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
• 250ml (1 cup) red wine - Yes, another cup, don't be shy. 
• 2 fresh or dried bay leaves
• 3 pears, peeled, cored, quartered

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C.

Grease a 23cm springform pan and line the base and sides with baking paper.

Sift the dry ingredients: flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and 1 tsp salt into a large bowl and stir to combine. Make a well in the middle. 

Add the eggs, buttermilk, wine, oil and vanilla, then (an electric mixer is best) beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes until you get a nice smooth batter.

Pour batter into the cake pan and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into centre comes out clean (my oven's a little tempermental so needed an extra 15mins). 

Cool the cake in the tin for 10 minutes before releasing the sides, then transfer it to a wire rack to cool completely.

Poached Pears:

While the cake is in the oven combine the ingredients and 250ml (1 cup) water in a saucepan. 

Bring it to a simmer over a medium heat. Cover the liquid with a round of baking paper, reduce the heat to low, then cook for 30 minutes or until pears are tender.

Remove from heat, and leave pears to cool in the syrup in the saucepan.

About 30 minutes before serving, remove pears from syrup using a slotted spoon.

Return the syrup to medium–high heat and simmer for 8 minutes or until reduced by half and the liquid has thickened.

Allow it to cool slightly. During that time arrange the poached pears on top of the cake, and whip a load of cream with a heaped spoon of icing sugar. 

  

Pour warm syrup over the cooled cake, and cut into large wedges, serve with whipped cream and any remaining syrup (Ideally you would have made double, I didn't but wish I had).  

Serve with more wine or tea, port or coffee. 

The cake also freezes well - but not the pears. 

Enjoy!