This recipe is take from Yvette Van Boven's book, Homemade Winter.
Ingredients
For the pears:
- 3 medium-sized crisp, firm pears (such as Bosc), peeled but whole, with the stem left on
- 1 (750-ml) bottle dry white wine
- 1¼ cups (250 g) sugar
- 4 cloves
- 3 star anise
- 8 cardamom pods
- 2 cinnamon sticks
For the cake
:
- 1½ cups plus 2 tbsp (200 g) butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
- 1 cup (200 g) sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1½ cups (200 g) self-rising flour
- 1 generous tbsp ground cardamom
- Pinch of salt
- 3 oz (90 g) white chocolate, in chunks
You will need:
- 9x5inch (1.5l) loaf pan
Method
- Poach the pears: In a large saucepan, combine the pears, wine, sugar, cloves, star anise, cardamom, and cinnamon and poach for 30 minutes over low heat
- Take the pears out of the liquid and set aside to cool. Add 2 ½ cups (500 ml) water to the poaching liquid and boil to reduce the liquid by half. Let cool
- Make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350°F (170°C)
- Using a hand mixer (see our guide to the best hand mixers here), beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl until creamy. Beat in the eggs one at the time. Don’t add a new egg until the previous one is incorporated
- Sift the flour, cardamom, and salt over the batter and fold it in
- Grease a 9-by-5-inch (1.5 l) loaf pan and line it with parchment paper. Grease the parchment paper
- Spoon the batter into the pan. Press the pears in, stem end up. Bake for 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the cake part comes out clean
- Allow to cool in the pan, then gently remove the cake from the pan to a rack to cool completely
- Very carefully melt the chocolate: Set a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Stir the chocolate in the bowl until melted. Using a spoon, drizzle the chocolate over the cake and create nice stripes on top
- Let the chocolate dry for a bit and serve the cake in thick slices, with the reduced pear syrup poured on top
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