Chocolate Amaretti Cake with Pears

My other half is a real chocoholic. I always have to hide chocolate around the house, especially the nice dark one I use for baking as it will just disappear in no time. Over the weekend it was his birthday so there was no excuse. A chocolate cake had to be made to celebrate in style. I added some crushed amaretti biscuits to give it that almondy flavour which goes so well with chocolate and some pears on top made a perfect combination. The cake disappeared very quickly! This is an uncomplicated cake, it does not take too long to prepare, it is rich, moist and a real treat for chocoholics! So go for it if you are into the dark stuff and who isn't?
- Prep Time : 30 minutes
- Cook Time : 40 minutes
Ingredients
- dark chocolate - 200 g
- Italian amaretti biscuits - 100 g
- egg yolks - 4
- flour - 150 g
- sugar - 140 g
- butter - 70 g
- orange essence - 1 tbsp
- orange zest - 1
- milk - 100 ml
- For the topping:
- ripe pears - 3
- apricot jam - 1 tbsp
- amaretti biscuits - to decorate
Instructions
Break the chocolate into pieces, put it in a ceramic bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Make sure the bowl does not get in contact with the water. The chocolate will melt nicely. Then add the butter and stir until it has completely melt.
Put the amaretti in a bag and bash them to reduce them into small crumbs. Put the egg yolks, the flour, the milk, the amaretti, the zest and orange essence and the sugar in a bowl and stir well
Add the chocolate and mix the ingredients well together
Pour the mixture into a greased round baking tin. Peel and cut the pears into halves and lay them onto the mixture with some amaretti biscuits for decoration
Melt the jam with a tbsp of water in a saucepan over a source of heat and stir
Brush the top of the cake with the jam and cook for 40 minutes at 180C
Enjoy!!
So rich, chocolatey, and indulgent!
it looks beautiful Alida. and today is my husbands’ bday and haven’t planned much. this will be a perfect last-minute cake. thanks for sharing!
Gloriously delicious, loved all the fruit baked with chocolate, so inviting Alida! Ozlem x
Allora auguri passati per il compleanno della tua dolce metà! La torta è molto golosa, cioccolato e pere è un abbinamento perfetto, brava! Un abbraccio!
Ooh yes please, this is definitely one for me Alida. Really like the idea of adding amaretti. And the pears look scrumptious too. This would be a great cake to bake when you need a load of egg whites.
amazingggggg….I love the combination of fruit and chocolate, it’s rare but very yummy. Congrats Alida.
I love this Alida look absolutely amazing!!and delicious!
Cia Alida. Loving your website! One question, did you use self-raising flour? Grazie.
Dear Liz,
yes I did and I realized I wrote flour instead! I have amended the ingredients now. Grazie! 🙂
Ciao! X
Hi, how much butter do you use and what size tin? Thank you.
Hi Helen,
thank you for your comment. I have updated the recipe, it’s 70 grams of butter and the size of the tin is 23 cm or 9 inch diameter.