Last week there was a heat wave in Southern California, but I still wanted to bake something. I had the day off last Tuesday, so I took the time to prep everything except the oven. I picked out a recipe, followed the directions until baking time, and then stuck it in the fridge to be baked on a cooler day.
By Thursday, it was in the 80s, so after work, I went ahead and heated up my apartment for a baked good in waiting.
I wanted to bake something seasonal using fall fruit, so I decided on chocolate pear cake in a loaf pan and started looking for recipes. The following recipe is for Chocolate pear buckle from the blog Hungry Girl Por Vida, to be baked in a 9×13 sheet pan. I baked it in a loaf pan instead.
The only other changes I made were to use pecan pieces instead of sliced almonds, and drizzle honey on top of the unbaked loaf, but skip the confectioners sugar.
The recipe does say that you should use ripe pears that just yield to a slight squeeze. Well, my pears were just a bit too ripe and gave the area around them enough moisture to be a little underdone.
I also may have put a bit too much pear. I sliced and cored two pears and layered them across the entire loaf. There were a few extra slices after the one layer so I put three more slices in the middle of the loaf as a second layer. Bad idea. But now that I’ve told you, you won’t make the same mistake.
Besides the slightly underdone are was that could have been avoided, this came out great. I loved the taste and texture. Chocolate and pear go well together. And the crunchy pecans were so great that I’m already thinking of the next baked good I can top with pecans.
Chocolate pear buckle recipe from Hungry Girl Por Vida
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
¾ cup sugar
2 large eggs
¾ cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 pears, peeled and cored
½ cup sliced almonds
1 tablespoon raw sugar
confectioners sugar to serve
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and line an 9×9 inch square baking pan with parchment.
In a bowl whisk together the butter, sugar, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla until combined well.
In another bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and kosher salt. Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and fold until just combined. Scrape the batter into the prepared baking pan. Slice the pear halves and using a spatula, arrange each sliced pear half onto the batter, fanning each half out a bit. Sprinkle the tops of the pears and cake batter with the almonds. Sprinkle the almonds with the raw sugar. Bake for 45 minutes in the center rack of the oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake batter comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack before serving.
Modern Notebook 
Did you use walnuts or pecans? In the second paragraph you said walnuts, but then later you said pecans. Looks delicious.
I actually used pecans. That’s what I should have wrote both times. I’ll update it now. It says almonds in the recipe at the end because that’s what the recipe I used suggests.