Flourless chocolate & pear cake #BBCfood

It’s flourless. And it’s chocolate and it’s nutty….adulterated from bbcgoodfood
You can use any nuts , canned pears and boring old white sugar.
Brandy optional but use vanilla essence and a little pear juice to make 1 tablespoon of liquid.

You need for one cake and 30 models:

85g butter , plus 1 tbsp extra for tin
85g or 1/3 cup of golden caster sugar , plus extra for tin
85g gluten-free dark chocolate , broken into pieces
1 tbsp brandy
3 eggs , separated
85g or one cup hazelnuts , toasted and ground in a food processor
4 very ripe pears , peeled, halved and cored
icing sugar , for dusting

• Cut a circle of baking parchment to fit the base of a 25cm loose-bottomed tin.
• Melt 1 tbsp butter and brush the inside of the tin, then line the base with the parchment and brush again with more butter.
• Spoon in 2 tbsp caster sugar, swirl it 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 hazelnuts.
• In a separate bowl, with a clean whisk, beat the whites until they reach a soft peak (try not to whisk them too stiffly or you’ll have trouble folding them in).
• 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 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.
• Dust with icing sugar and serve with crème fraîche.