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Warm pear and orange cake in milk chocolate soup
Makes 12 Small Cakes Desserts and puddings
For the cakes
- 60g caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 egg yolk
- zest of ½ orange
- 60g plain or 00 flour, sifted
- 25g unsalted butter
- 1 pear, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes, plus 2 sliced, to serve
- handful of tarragon, to serve
For the milk chocolate soup
- 8tbsp whole milk
- 4tbsp double cream
- 25g unsalted butter
- 100g milk chocolate (min 70% cocoa solids), broken into small pieces
Method
Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease the moulds in a 12 hole muffin tin, unless using silicone cases. When the oven is hot, place the sugar on a baking tray lined with baking parchment and heat in the oven for 5 minutes.
Whisk the eggs and egg yolk in a large bowl with a hand-held blender for 1 minute. Add the warm sugar and the orange zest, then continue to whisk until the mixture forms a ribbon-like trail when the whisk is lifted. This will take about 5 minutes, so persevere to get a really frothy and light mixture. To check you’ve whisked enough, turn off the blender and lift the beaters from the mix, making a circle with the beaters over the bowl; you should be able to see a line of the mixture sit on the surface before sinking in. If there is no trail, continue to whisk. When it is ready, very gently fold in the sifted flour, a pinch of salt, and the cubes of pear using as few movements as possible; you don’t want to lose the precious air you have whipped in.
Melt the butter in a microwave or in a small saucepan and when just runny, mix in with the rest of the ingredients, gently folding it as before. Divide the mixture between the moulds to just below the top of each one.
Transfer to the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre of the cakes comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the moulds. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
For the milk chocolate soup, heat the milk, cream, butter and a pinch of salt together in a medium saucepan over a medium-high heat. Bring to the boil, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon, and then remove from the heat. Stir in the chocolate until it is melted and smooth. Use straight away or allow to cool and reheat gently in a bowl over a simmering pan of boiling water, or briefly in the microwave.
To serve, briefly heat the cakes for 5 minutes in an oven heated to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Swirl a little milk chocolate soup into a wide bowl, set a cake into it and then finish with a scoop of toasted hazelnut ice cream or your favourite flavour, a few slices of pear and some tarragon leaves.
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