Thursday, December 8, 2011

Upside-down Pear Chocolate Cake Recipe Link, for CK in DC

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Upside-Down-Pear-Chocolate-Cake-354975

Funny, 'cause I got my recipe out of the Rustic Fruit Desserts cookbook, but here it is via epicurious.com.

Note 1: Typo! Omission! In the online recipe, for the Fruit Topping, they forgot to include the amount of water to add to the sugar to make your caramel: 1/4 cup water.

Note 2: The recipe gives you measurements in both weight and cups, and turns out, for the cocoa powder, 1/3 cup does NOT equal 1 ounce, as called for. In this case, I went for the 1 ounce measurement weight, which was a Tablespoon or 2 less than 1/3 cup. Always go for the moister sounding option; the powder is dry!

Note 3: Making the caramel: They don't describe in detail how it works, which is when you take off the lid after having boiled for 2 minutes, as described, it then takes at least 10 or more minutes for the sugar water to go amber colored. I kept waiting, and waiting, but it finally happened.

Note 4: When they tell you to carefully pour the caramel into the prepared pan and let it harden, this takes about 30 seconds. So make sure you gently pour the caramel all the way around to the edges of the pan because once it hardens, you can't spread it out.

Note 5: They also tell you to "pour" the batter into the pan, but actually the batter was more like a mousse, and I had to spoon it out and then spread it flat with an offset spatula.

Note 6: Worth it.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks. You can find almost any good recipe on epicurious these days, including those from NY Times and Washington Post. This looks harder than my usual, but I'll trust you on #6. This weekend, I'm planning to make Melissa Clark's Apple Bourbon Bundt cake (NY Times recipe just before Thanksgiving) for office holiday dessert buffet.

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  2. Hi! The trick is to not be afraid of the recipe; is not harder really, just more steps to take...in fact, is easy, cause it's only one cake layer to make, just 3 pears to peel and slice, and simply liken the caramel making to a frosting that you will be taken care of all in one swoop, so really, it's actually less steps to take than a traditional frosted layer cake.

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