Skip to main content

Pear and Chocolate Cupcakes





Ingredients

3 eggs, separated
2-3 pears
100 g sugar
100 g butter
150 g dark chocolate
1 shot of Rum or a drop of Vanilla essence
200 g self-rising flour



Usually I fold in the beaten egg whites at the end, but this time I wanted to experiment a bit, and also I wanted to coat some pear slices with meringue for decoration, so I started by whipping the egg whites. Coat a few pear slices with the egg white, then roll in sugar and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Then keep beating the egg whites and add the sugar, then the egg yolks. Melt the butter with 50 g of dark chocolate and add to the mixture. Then add the Rum (just a little, these cupcakes were for my kids also) or vanilla essence, and finally the self-rising flour. Fold in some pear cubes and divide between 12 cupcake cases.





Bake at 180°C for about 16 minutes, or until the cupcakes are cooked. Don't overbake them or they will become dry. Remove the cupcakes from the oven, lower the heat to 100°C and bake the meringue pear slices for 20 minutes, or until the meringue is set. Let them cool down in the oven. Melt the remaining 100 g of dark chocolate and spoon it over the cupcakes. Before the chocolate topping set decorate the cupcakes with the meringue pears and/or ...what you like! I used some Japanese chocolate mushrooms biscuits because they looked so cute!



Here with the pear topping

And here with the 'mushrooms'

Pears go very well with chocolate, and the 'reverse' mixing didn't seem to effect the end result really: the cupcakes were soft and light. Still, I think I do prefer to fold the beaten egg whites at the end, I will have to experiment more :-). The mushroom biscuits... I will use them again for decoration, a nice change from flowers, butterflies and the usual things you see on cupcakes, especially if you are making them for boys, as well as girls.


Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©




With this recipe I take part in the blogging event Sweet New Zealand #4
hosted by Mairi of Toast



Labels:

Comments

  1. Gloria BakerJuly 3, 2011 at 3:32 PM

    Alessandra look absolutely amazing and beauty! gloria

    ReplyDelete
  2. LeniaJuly 3, 2011 at 8:52 PM

    they are so beautiful and I am sure they are yummy too!!!Great presentation!Un bacione,carina!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cooking GalleryJuly 4, 2011 at 6:07 AM

    When I saw this post of yours some time ago, I already thought 'What a great idea!' :).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Priya SureshJuly 4, 2011 at 6:19 PM

    Those cupcakes looks super delicious,pretty and excellent..

    ReplyDelete
  5. aipiJuly 5, 2011 at 11:11 AM

    Looks so tasty, I know I won’t be able to stop eating these! ;)
    US Masala

    ReplyDelete
  6. Couscous & ConsciousnessDecember 6, 2011 at 10:26 PM

    These cupcakes look wonderful - I love the combination of pear and chocolate. Those little mushrooms are so cute too.
    Sue xo

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book  Sweet As...  where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal...
9 comments
Read more

Silver beet Paneer, a variation of Palak Paneer

The other day I showed you my curry made with borage , ‘invented’ because I have tons of it in the garden! The other green-leaf crop that does well in Auckland is silver beet. My old plants (from last year!) got so tall that I started collecting only the little leaves from the stalks, and they look like spinach. One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer (or Panir), spinach with panir cottage cheese, and this variation is made using my silver beet. I washed (many times!) the small silver beet leaves, and then I steamed them and drain them. In a heavy pot I heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) and sautéed for 30 seconds: 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp turmeric 1/3 tsp ground chili then I added 2 roughly chopped shallots and, after 3 minutes, a good pinch of salt and the cooked silver beet. I cooked everything on low for about 20 minutes (you may need to add just a little water if the silver beet is too dry) and then finely pureed the content ...
5 comments
Read more

Home Made Marzipan Sweets

This is another recipe from my book Sweet As , and something that I love to make for Xmas. I would like to say that for marzipan you should get the best almonds around, natural, but here in New Zealand the almonds taste different from the ones in Italy. They are imported, not sure where from most of the time, but they are not top grade almonds. Still, with a few tips, you can make your marzipan taste great even with 'regular' almonds! Buy them natural, not blanched, you need to blanche then yourself or the result will be too dry. To blanch them you need to put them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then add cold water and take the skin off, one by one. For this recipe you will need: 200 g almonds 100 g icing sugar 5 apricot kernels. As I was saying before, the almond here have little taste, so I like to collect the stones from apricot and get the almonds out. They are a real pain to crack! In the photo above you can see apricot stones and kernels. The apricot kernel...
13 comments
Read more