ginger chocolate pear bread cake

i was initially going to introduce some punctuation into the title of this post, but in fact i actually think of this as if it was all one word, like GingerChocolatePearBreadCake, so i decided to leave it punctuation-free. 

it's dangerous, though, if you already don't really use capital letters as you ought and then you start flouting the rules of punctuation. you could go off the rails really quickly, is what i'm saying. but. BUT. i was almost an english minor, so it's like one of those "learn the rules so you can break 'em" things. 

or not.

pears and i have a moderately complex relationship. i kind of dig fake pear flavoring (though it's uncommon to find in candies, etc., i like it when i do) and my favorite kind of skyr when i went to iceland was pear-flavored. too often when i buy pears, though, they start out hard, enjoy a brief 30 second interlude of flavor/texture perfection, and promptly melt into the crisper drawer.

that's essentially what happened with these pears mike bought, but i found them before they were quite destroyed and decided to put them to use in a sweet quick bread. there aren't a lot of pear bread recipes out there, but i found this one and modified it to my mental image of the pear bread-cake i sought.

to that end - chocolate. also much more pear and ginger, including a hefty dose of finely grated fresh ginger. nuts would be a good addition, too, but we didn't have any because we used the last of the pecans for the beet and blue cheese salad (aka Beets of the Southern Wild) we made for this year's oscar pun dinner (see previous offerings, Midnight in Pears and Precious: Based on the Liquor Gin by Bombay Sapphire, whose recipe has sadly been lost to the mists of glorious memory).

the great thing about quick breads is how quick they are (!). the main work involved in this is the messy (for me) peeling and cutting-up of the very-soft-at-this-point pears. as shown above, just cut them in half after peeling, get the core out, and chop them thinly one way and then the other. you don't have to be overly fastidious about this - they kind of meld with the rest of the bread anyway.

other than that, it's a typical one-to-one-and-1/2-bowl affair - the wet ingredients (including sugar. sugar usually counts as wet in baking) get mixed together and then you add the dry ingredients. probably the best thing would be to mix the dry ingredients separately and then add them, but i'm congenitally unable to dirty more dishes than necessary, so i always mix the leaveners in the measuring cup with part of the flour, add that, add the rest of the flour, and mix everything gently together. then fold in the pear and the chocolate. i used some dark chocolate discs, but you could also cut up a bar or use some chocolate chips.

i buttered the loaf pan (9"x5") and made a little liner out of parchment paper. you don't necessarily have to do this, but the paper or a liner of aluminum foil will make the bread easier to remove from the pan later. a stitch in time, etc.

then just bake it for 45-50 minutes or so, turning it around mid-way through. i let it cool in the pan for awhile before taking it out, which was a good move because this stuff is super moist (though not dense!) and it really wanted to fall apart at first. once it cooled down, though, it made for a rich, gingery afternoon treat that stayed lushly soft for several days. it's particularly good with a strong cup of tea, but would also work as a more dessert-y course with a scoop of ice cream.

ginger chocolate pear bread cake
(heavily adapted from this ginger pear bread recipe)

mix

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 packed teaspoon grated fresh ginger (i used a microplane over a cup to make sure to catch all of the ginger juice, which contributes a lot of flavor)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

zest of 1 lemon

add
1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs, beaten

mix separately, then add

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

fold in
2 cups peeled, cored, and chopped pears

1/4 cup chopped dark chocolate

bake at 325 (although i actually started at 350 and turned it down to 325 after 10 minutes or so) for 45 minutes or until a toasty golden brown

listening to: yo la tengo

midnight in pears - dark chocolate & pear cake

cake is pretty much always a good idea. bold words, i know, but they're true.

you may think that cake is too much of a hassle. you may think you don't have time to make a cake. that may be sort of true, but i'm about as busy as i've ever been and i'm still happy that i made time for cake. you can do it!

this cake was part of the spread at our friends' annual pun-filled oscar party. past offerings have included "precious: based on the liquor gin by bombay sapphire" and (from others) "tuna avotartare." this year i made this cake - midnight in pears - and "The Help yourself to some biscuits and gravy." other people brought "eggstremely loud and incredibly quiche" and "gary old ham," among other delicacies. a good time was had by all! oscar fever!

i wasn't super sure about chocolate and pears, but they actually go together remarkably well. this recipe was based on one from epicurious, but i made a few changes because i am incapable of leaving well enough alone.

one thing i always do with cakes (and particularly with upside-down fruit-containing cakes) is line the pan with parchment paper. this makes it so much simpler to get it out of the pan in one piece and it keeps it looking pretty. also, origami!

take a square of parchment paper that is a little bigger than your cake pan. i used an 8" pan with 2" sides. fold it in half and then in half again and again like this (so basically you start with a square, fold to a rectangle, fold to a triangle, and keep folding the triangle into smaller triangles):

keep folding until you have a narrow series of folds with a point at the end.

then just put the point of the paper in the center of the pan and use scissors to cut the end of the paper at a very slight curve so that when you unfold the parchment it fits neatly into your pan. et voila!

you can also put the pan on top of the paper and trace around it with a pencil or whatever, but i think this is faster and more fun. also, who has pencils anymore?

butter the pan underneath the parchment, then butter the sides, then go ahead and butter the parchment as well. live a little!

now, go ahead and preheat your oven to 350. then cut up your pears. i used three bosc pears, because they looked best at the market, but you can probably use whatever. i don't really know anything about differences between pears. i'm sure someone on the internets does, though, if you're interested.

peel each, cut them in half, and take out the seedy area. i used a metal teaspoon and it worked really well and looked pretty, but if you are a Fancy Person with a melon baller, you could also use that. if you are a normal person, you could use like a spoon or summat. then just set the cut half on a board and cut slices as below. i got about 8 slices per half.

time for caramel!

in the original recipe it felt like the caramel recipe they use is a little fussy. it also uses a lot of water which is just going to boil off anyway. i used 3/4 cup sugar and 1/3 cup water and it worked fine. you put these in a scrupulously clean pan and heat it over mediumish heat. don't mess with it! the sugar will dissolve and it will start bubbling and be very hot and scary. eventually, it will get all golden at the outer edges. you can swirl it to ensure that it all goldens at the same time. let it get pretty dark, then add 1 tablespoon of butter, stir it in and put it in your prepared pan. here is a video for making a caramel sauce that shows the process better. this is basically the same, but without the cream and with different amounts of things.

seriously, though, this stuff is REALLY hot, so don't be tempted to lick the spoon or drip it on your arm or anything. not that you would, but don't. now that i'm thinking about it, you could probably also just put some brown sugar and a little butter underneath the pears and not bother with the caramel and it would also probably work fine. a little splash of bourbon is a good idea at this point, too - some for you, some for the cake!

then just layer the pears in there. i like to use the prettiest pears on the bottom layer, since that's what you'll see once you upside-down it. but you don't have to be too fussy.

then set it aside (if you use the caramel, the pan will be awfully hot, so put it on a trivet or something, for god's sake) and chop up some dark chocolate (~4 oz).

add it to 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) of butter and put it in a pan over low heat. or you could probably microwave it, but i don't have a microwave. i actually used the same pan i made the caramel in, because i am quite lazy. keep an eye on it, but you can mix up the dry ingredients while the chocolate and butter melt (unless you have the heat too high don'tdothat).

i just put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk them a bit - sifting always seems a little frou-frou. once the chocolate and butter melt, add 2-3 tablespoons of coffee and beat them with 2/3 of a cup of sugar for 3-5 minutes. i always add coffee to chocolate cakes - it doesn't make them taste coffee-y, they just get more chocolatey. the original recipe says "until light and fluffy" but i just don't see how that's possible with melted chocolate. then add 2 eggs, one at a time, mixing full in between each addition, then the vanilla. if you have some chocolate extract, a teaspoon of that is a good call, too.

then add 1/3 of the dry ingredient mixture, then 1/4 cup of milk, then another 1/3 of the dry mixture, then the other 1/4 cup milk, then the rest of the dry, mixing in between each addition. this sounds like a hassle, but it really takes like 2 minutes, tops. then just pour it over the pears and caramel.

you can taste a little of the batter, if you like. it is very good. bake it for 45 minutes to an hour. i baked mine for an hour because it seemed very jiggly on top still after 45 minutes, but then i felt like it was a little dry, so i would probably take it out after 55 minutes or a little less next time. it depends on your pan size, too - if you have a 9" pan i'd maybe let it go for only 45 minutes.

it's not like it's going to be bad, either way. we ate it right up.

*ingredients*

adapted from upside-down pear chocolate cake, by cory schreiber & julie richardson

caramel:

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon butter

1 splash bourbon (after caramel is in the cake pan)

3 pears

cake:

4 oz chopped dark chocolate

1/4 cup butter

2-3 tablespoons nice dark coffee

2/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla (+ 1 teaspoon chocolate extract, optional)

5 oz flour (1 cup)

1 oz cocoa (1/3 cup)

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

listening to: i can't get this new santigold song out of my head. the video quality isn't great, but i like the girls with the fancy umbrellas and live shows are always exciting. here is what i guess is a more official video with weird animation. also phoenix (did you know myspace was still a thing? me either!)

pear/ginger/lemon/bourbon

i know it's officially been fall for awhile now, but somehow late october is when fall starts seeming real to me. i think partly that's because in texas it's generally ridiculous-hot until then. here in portland, it's been pretty cool for awhile, but over the last couple of weeks the trees have started getting really colorful and the smell of woodsmoke is in the air. that's how you know.

fall has always been my favorite season. in texas, it means you lived through another summer (no small feat). in portland, it means scarves, boots, and brisk walks where you crunch through leaves and can see your breath. then when you get home, you can drink this to warm up!

this drink has a wealth of classic fall flavor - the sweet pear, spicy ginger, and, uh, lemony lemon combine with bourbon to make the perfect pick-me-up après-hike. or après-thrift-shopping. or après-whatever-you-like-to-do-on-a-saturday.

plus, you can make a batch ahead of time and then if people drop by unexpectedly, you can nonchalantly be like, "oh, would you like a fancy cocktail? i just whipped this up, no biggie." and they will be all, "wow, you are the fanciest!" and you will smile demurely and pass the cheese straws.

anyway. ginger:
you definitely want some fresh ginger for this. i use a spoon to scrape the papery skin off and then just slice it up (probably not with the spoon, unless it is one of those weird grapefruit ones). it doesn't really matter how thick they are, but think coins, rather than chunks.

i leave the skin on the pear and slice it from the top, also into coins. but you can totes slice it into wedges or whatever. i just think the extra surface area of the coins makes it easier to get it infused into the bourbon (yeah, that's where this is going). but follow your bliss.

then just put the pear and ginger into a thingy, add some strips of lemon rind (you can use a vegetable peeler or knife - just avoid the white pith part) smash them a few times with a wooden spoon to get the oils and whatever started, and add some bourbon.

i ended up using about a cup or so of bourbon, one small pear, maybe an inch and a half or two inches of a thinnish ginger root, and about 1/4 or 1/3 of a lemon's rind. then just cover it and let it sit for awhile. it doesn't have to be too long, but i would leave it for at least a few hours. overnight would be good as well.

then you can strain it, put some in a glass, maybe add some lemon juice if you aren't a fan of the sweetz, top it off with ginger ale or (preferably) ginger beer (it's stronger and much more gingery) and ice, and add a sliver of pear if you want to feel super-fancy. you could also use rye or another kind of whiskey or maybe even dark rum. hooray for fall!

*ingredients* for a number of drinks (4? 6? it depends on how much bourbon you want in yours)

1 small ripe pear

1 1/2-2 inches of ginger root, cut in coins

peel from 1/4-1/3 lemon

1 cup (+/-) bourbon

ginger ale/ginger beer

lemon juice, to taste