Red Wine Poached Pears Baked in Chocolate Cake

 Oh yes, this is good, my family devoured it AND apparently it was the best chocolate cake they've ever had.  So, even if you decide not to poach the pears, the chocolate cake is positively perfect!

For Pears:  Buy 6-8  Bosc Pears and peel.  Leaving the pears whole, including the cute stem, cut the bottom a little to flatten it out.  In a pot and over medium heat add a bottle of red wine, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 cinnamon sticks, a few star anise, the peel of one orange and in my case, 1 sliced blood orange.  Toss all into the pot, including the peeled pears and simmer for about 40 minutes, turning the pears occasionally so that the red wine colors the whole pear.

When cooked and beautifully colored, remove from the pot of wine and put onto a plate and set aside. Then strain out 1 cup of the red wine for the chocolate cake.

For Chocolate Cake:  1/2 cup unsalted butter melted, 1-1 /4 cups all purpose flour, 1/3 cup unsweetened coco powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1/2 tsp. kosher salt, 2/3 cup granulated sugar, 1 large egg, 1 cup of the red wine from the poached pears, 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract.

Preheat oven to 350 and grease up a round 9 inch cake pan.  Next time I'm going to use a springform pan because it would be nice to see the whole cake rather than cutting it out of a cake dish.

Mix up the chocolate cake with the above ingredients, mixing the dry ingredients first, then adding the wet ingredients. Pour into the greased cake pan and then plunk ever so gently the poached pears around the sides of the cake pan.  For a little glitz I sprinkled the pears with edible gold flakes - then pop cake and pears into the oven for 45-50 minutes.

When done, take out of the oven and cool.  Add your favorite chocolate drizzle or any other ganache you like and serve.