Autumn Pear, Chocolate & Almond Cake
An almond cake fanned with pears and dark chocolate
Serves 10 · 20 min active · 1 hr 20 min total · Bosc pears are seasonal to the Pacific Northwest from late summer into fall and keep beautifully through winter · early afternoon
Ingredients
2 ½ cups almond flour
¾ cup coconut sugar
¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground Ceylon cinnamon
¼ tsp Baja Gold sea salt
Optional: ½ tsp aluminum-free baking powder, for a lighter crumb
4 pasture-raised eggs
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
¾ cup grass-fed butter, melted (or coconut oil)
2 ripe but firm pears (Beurre Bosc or similar), peeled (or leave the skins on for extra fiber and a rustic look)
100 g (3½ oz) 70% dark chocolate, chopped
Method
Preheat the oven to 340°F if you have a fan (convection) oven, or 350°F for a conventional oven. Line a 9-inch springform pan with parchment.
Mix the dry ingredients. Whisk the almond flour, coconut sugar, shredded coconut, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, and optional baking powder in a large bowl.
Add the wet ingredients. Whisk in the eggs, melted butter, and vanilla until smooth.
Layer. Chop one pear into thick slices. Pour half the batter into the pan, scatter over the chopped pear and half the chocolate, then pour the remaining batter on top.
Fan the pear. Slice the second pear in half lengthwise and scoop out the core. Make thin parallel cuts from just below the stem to the base, keeping the slices attached at the top, so the pear can be fanned. Press the fanned halves gently on top of the cake and scatter the remaining chocolate around them.
Bake about 1 hour, until the center is set and a skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs. If the top is browning too fast (coconut sugar darkens quickly), tent it loosely with foil after about 40 minutes.
Cool in the pan 20 minutes before releasing. It's best served warm with softly whipped raw cream or a spoonful of crème fraîche.
Nourishment Notes
Beurre Bosc and similar russeted autumn pears are firmer and more aromatic than summer pears and hold their shape under heat, which makes them the right choice for a baked cake. A softer pear like Bartlett would collapse into the batter and water down the crumb. The same rule applies to poaching and roasting: firm autumn pears hold up to long cooking in a way softer pears don't.
Coconut sugar is a minimally processed sweetener made from the sap of the coconut palm's flower buds. It carries a faint caramel-and-molasses note that refined cane sugar lacks, and it pairs particularly well with the warm spices in this cake. It's often called lower-glycemic, but the research is limited, and it's still sugar, so enjoy this as a treat. The trade-off is that coconut sugar darkens a baked good more quickly than cane sugar, which is why this cake bakes at a slightly lower oven temperature and longer time than a wheat-flour version would.
Pear with almond and pear with chocolate are both classic European autumn pairings: think the French tarte aux poires Bourdaloue (pears baked in almond cream) and the Italian torta pere e cioccolato. Dark chocolate's gentle bitterness keeps the pear's soft, floral sweetness from tasting flat. Almond fills the role wheat would play in a conventional cake, giving it body and richness without competing for flavor.
Pears — fiber (especially in the skin), vitamin C, copper, and polyphenols.
Almond flour — vitamin E, magnesium, and monounsaturated fats.
Pasture-raised eggs — complete protein, choline, and fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K2.
Grass-fed butter — CLA, K2, butyrate, and beta-carotene.
Dark chocolate — flavanols, magnesium, iron, and theobromine, a gentle natural stimulant, which makes this cake best enjoyed in the early afternoon.
Ceylon cinnamon and nutmeg — warming spices traditionally used for digestion. Cinnamon's polyphenols also help moderate blood sugar.
Coconut — fiber and lauric acid, a medium-chain fat.
Storage: Covered at room temperature up to 1 day, then refrigerated up to 5 days (the fresh pear and butter keep best chilled). Warm slices at 300°F for 8-10 minutes. It also freezes well, wrapped, for up to 2 months.
Sourcing
Almond flour — organic and fresh (keep it in the fridge). U.S. almonds are pasteurized by law, even when labeled "raw," so the gold standard is grinding your own from organic, unpasteurized Spanish almonds, like Terrasoul's
Coconut sugar — organic
Shredded coconut — organic, unsweetened, and sulfite-free
Pears — organic Bosc pears from a Pacific Northwest orchard or your local farmers' market, ripe but still firm
Dark chocolate — organic, fair-trade 70% chocolate with no soy lecithin or other emulsifiers (Hu is one example, sweetened with coconut sugar). Since cacao can carry cadmium and lead from the soil, choose brands that publish heavy-metal testing when you can
Pasture-raised eggs — organic, from a local farm where the hens truly range on pasture, or Alexandre Family Farm (Regenerative Organic Certified)
Grass-fed butter — organic, cultured butter from 100% grass-fed cows, or raw butter from a local dairy. Or organic, virgin coconut oil
Spices (Ceylon cinnamon and nutmeg) — organic and non-irradiated; buy whole nutmeg and grate it fresh
Vanilla — organic pure vanilla extract with no added sugar
Baking powder (optional) — aluminum-free (Rumford)
Cream or crème fraîche (for serving) — raw cream from a small pasture-raised dairy, or Bellwether Farms crème fraîche
Baja Gold sea salt
— Anna aka Food Marshall