Flourless chocolate and pear cake

My first ever gluten-free baking! I’ve never ventured into gluten-free baking mainly because there are never a need to. But a few of my friends have coeliac disease so I decided to make a gluten-free cake for them. So what exactly is gluten? It is actually a protein that is found in wheat, rye, barley, soy. Gluten plays an important role in baking. It’s like a binding agent that helps the dough become more elastic and chewy. Without gluten, the texture of the baked goods tend to be harder and less chewy.

For my little experiment, I’ve adapted the recipe from BBC Good Foods. This recipe requires the whisking of the egg whites help create a nice moist texture to make up for missing gluten. I used Lindt 70% dark chocolate and kahlua (or you can use any coffee liquor or brandy) for a nice little hint of alcohol. The cake turned out to be moist and absolutely delicious. This will be my go-to gluten free cake.

Nutrition per cake

Ingredients

85g unsalted butter
85g dark chocolate (I used Lindt 70% dark)
60g golden caster sugar
2 tbsp kahlua
3 eggs seperated
85g almond meal
2 riped pears sliced (skin removed)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
Grease a 25cm cake tin
Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of hot water, remove from the heat, stir in the kahlua and leave to cool
Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar in a large bowl until pale and thick
Fold the whisked egg yolks and almond meal into the chocolate
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 in half of the mixture into the prepared tin
Level, then arrange the slices of pear over the mixture and spoon in the remaining half
Bake for 40 mins until the pears are soft and the cake is cooked all the way through.
Leave to cool in the tin slightly before releasing it, then place on a rack to cool completely