Chocolate Pear Pudding (Nigella Lawson’s no-fuss recipe)

Having cooked the poached pear in red wine, I still got several beautiful pears in my fridge. While wondering how I could use up the in-season lovely pears, Nigella Lawson’s cooking show of making chocolate pear pudding came just in time. She always shows cooking delicious dishes without any fuss or pressure. Take a look at the recipe below, you'd see how easy to make the dessert. This luscious chocolate pudding became a perfect ending to our dinner last week.

Chocolate Pear Pudding, adapted from：Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Pear Pudding (Printable recipe)

Serves 6-8
Ingredients

• 2 x 415g cans pear halves in juice
• 125g plain flour
• 25g cocoa powder
• 125g caster sugar
• 150g soft butter, plus extra for greasing
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6 and grease a 22cm square ovenproof dish with butter.
2. Drain the pears and arrange them on the base of the dish.
3. Put all the remaining ingredients in a food processor and blitz until you have a batter with a soft dropping consistency.
4. Spread the brown batter over the pears, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
5. Let stand out of the oven for 5 or 10 minutes and then cut into slabs - I cut 2 down and 2 across to make 9 slices - and serve with chocolate sauce.

Notes:

• The original recipe calls for canned pears so that it can be made throughout the year whenever you crave for. 
• For making use of my stock of fresh pears, I cooked 2 pears with 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of freshly grated lemon juice. The amount of sugar used depends on how sweet the pears you get and your preference.