I have several favourite flavour combinations…peanut butter and strawberries, apple and salted caramel, orange and cranberry are all good examples. Chocolate, is of course, good with pretty much anything, however a personal love of mine is dark chocolate and ginger. I love the warmth the spice gives to the chocolate. At this time of year, when they are in season and at their best, juicy pears are a great addition to that pairing. I’ve made chocolate, ginger pear green smoothies, and in a much less ‘polish your halo’ version of healthiness, here is a cake version of that combo. However, it might look like cake and most certainly taste like cake, but it has no grain flour in it at all and is naturally sweetened.
This is a cake you can eat with your healthy halo still intact!
- 2 cups of ground almonds
- 1/4 cup of coconut flour
- 1/2 tbsp of baking powder
- 2 tsp of ground ginger (more if you like a stronger ginger flavour)
- 4 large free range eggs
- 1/4 cup of full fat greek yoghurt
- 1/4 cup of coconut oil, melted
- 1 tbsp of vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups of almond milk
- 1/2 cup of coconut sugar (I used coconom ginger coconut sugar)
- 2 large pears
- 1/4 - 1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips
- Pre heat the oven to 350F / 180c.
- Combine the ground almond, coconut flour, ginger and baking powder in a bowl and set aside
- In a separate bowl whisk together the eggs, yoghurt, milk and vanilla extract. Allow to come to room temperature
- Melt the coconut oil, then while whisking, add the coconut oil in a slow drizzle to the other wet ingredients.
- Slice and chop the pear into chunks.
- Combine the dry ingredients into the wet then lightly mix in the chopped pears and chocolate chips.
- Grease a baking dish (mine was 10x8) and pour in the mixture.
- Bake for 45 - 60 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch.
- Serve warm, with a pudding like texture, or allow to cool and slice into squares.
- I used ginger infused coconut sugar. Feel free to use regular brown sugar or plain coconut sugar instead, but increase the ground ginger.
- I used 1/4 cup of greek yoghurt in place of some of the coconut oil in the recipe I adapted this from. Feel free to use 1/2 a cup of coconut oil.
- The batter may initially seem thin, but give it a few moments and it will thicken as the coconut flour absorbs the liquid. Do use your kitchen intuition and add more coconut flour a tbsp at a time if needed.
You can enjoy the cake warm from the oven to delight in the melted chocolate chips and pudding like texture. If you allow it to cool, it will firm up and it’s texture will change from that of a pudding to a more traditional cake crumb.
This is really very filling. I got 12 deep chunky squares from this, but if you used a different baking tray you could probably get 16 more reasonable size slices. The mixture doesn’t rise too much, but as you can see, these are big dense squares of yumminess!
I left the pear skin on, but feel free to peel them if you don’t like their texture.
This cake would be great for dessert or as a morning or afternoon accompaniment to a cup of tea or coffee. It is actually so full of good stuff it would even make a more decadent breakfast that would keep you full all morning.
As with the majority of my baked recipes, these will freeze very well. I’ve squirrelled away several slices wrapped in foil to enjoy later, I can’t wait!
What is one of your favourite flavour combinations? Do you prefer pudding like cakes or spongy cakes?
Yum looks amazing I love pear and chocolate!
This looks amazing! – I’m gluten free, so will def be trying this recipe – thanks Laura :-) x
Wowza!! This sounds amazing!!! I’ll be honest..I like any cake hehe :P Favourite flavour combinations for me would be toffee and coconut (recently discovered and in love!), chocolate coconut pistachio and almond maple :)
Yum! I don’t have any coconut flour at the moment so I’m quite sad :( I love it, but it’s quite expensive and tricky to get. Booo.
Yummy this looks so Laura, super moist and tasty :)
Wow that looks so delicious, lots of ingredients I haven’t ever tried before. Yum!
This looks so yummy but can you reccomend any alternatives to the coconut oil, sugar and flour to make it a bit more budget friendly?
chocolate ginger pear smoothie – need to remember that one :)
Mm, these are my favourite autumn flavours although I tend to team them up in a not so healthy crumble! xx
I’m loving the look of the texture of this cake! I always glossed over any kind of pudding or spongey cakes, but after baking up a batch of bread pudding a few weeks ago, I’ve kind of fallen in love with that texture. So underrated. And when it comes to favourite flavour combos, right now I’m really loving kabocha and AB, and honey and AB.
Ooh yums! Very excited as recently bought some coconut flour for banana bread and wanted to fine more recipes to use it with – this is perfect!
Looks Yum!! My belly just rumbled after reading this post! Keep posting more goodness.
That looks delicious :) Although I never got on baking with coconut flour- I have always had better results with ground almonds.
Just made this….it tastes lovely but the texture is quite “batter” like instead of spongy…..Yorkshire pudding like texture. Any ideas where I could have gone wrong. Was cooked through, maybe too much egg? Will try again. I made the lemon poppy seed and courgette cake last week and it turned out perfect! thanks for the recipes. Any advice re my batter cake error much appreciated!
Hmm, I’m not sure, maybe too much egg as you said, did you use large eggs? Glad that you enjoyed the lemon poppyseed cake! xx