Flourless chocolate and pear cake

This is everything I want right now: easy, chocolatey, impressive, rich and gooey. I like to think the pears mean it counts as one of your 5-a-day. Great warm with a dollop of creme fraiche, it gets even better after a day or two. But you might find it doesn't last that long.


Ingredients:
85g butter + extra for tin
85g caster sugar + extra for tin
85g dark chocolate , broken into pieces
1 tbsp brandy
3 eggs, separated
85g ground almonds
1 can of pears

Melt 1 tbsp butter and use to brush the inside of a 25cm loose-bottomed tin, then line the base with parchment and brush again with more butter. Spoon in 2 tbsp caster sugar, swirl around to coat the base and sides, then tip out any excess.

Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of hot water, remove from the heat, stir in the brandy and leave to cool. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar in a large bowl until pale and thick; fold into the chocolate with the almonds.

In a separate bowl, with a clean whisk, beat the whites until they reach a soft peak. Stir a spoonful of the whites into the chocolate mix, then carefully fold in the rest of them in 2 additions. Spoon into the prepared tin. Level, then arrange the pears over the mixture, cut-side down. Bake for 40 mins until the cake is cooked all the way through. Leave to cool in the tin, then place on a rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar just before serving.