Chocolate and Pear Loaf Cake

I don't think it's any secret that I love a loaf cake. I love the simplicity of them and just being able to keep it under the glass dome in the kitchen and cut off a small slice when making a cup of tea. They seem to go down well with the children too and occasionally find their way into their packed lunches.

I love fruit in a loaf cake and I love the combination of pear and chocolate together so settled on that for my baking exploits last Sunday. Normally I make banana loaf as I tend to have a few manky bananas lying around so it was a nice change.

It turned out really well, thought took long to gook than I had expected. It was very tasty and really moist (down to the yoghurt I guess) and was simply delicious warm and gooey straight out of the oven!

Chocolate and Pear Loaf Cake

Ingredients

1 small ripe pear (125g chopped weight)

70g dark chocolate (at least 60%)

125g unsalted butter, room temperature

75g golden caster sugar

50g light brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

135g plain flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp plain yoghurt

Method

Preheat the oven to 180c/gas mark 4. Lightly grease and line a 2lb loaf tin.

Put your flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl.  Peel the pear and chop into small cubes. Roughly chop the dark chocolate into small chunks. Gently mix both the pear and chocolate chunks into the flour mixture so they are well coated.

Cream the butter and sugars together (either using a stand mixer or by hand) until they are fluffy and pale. Add 1/2 of the beaten eggs and beat until smooth. Add a teaspoon of flour from your mixing bowl and mix in the final 1/2 of the beaten eggs.

Add the flour mix to the butter, sugar and egg and carefully fold together until everything is well combined. The mixture will be quite stiff at this point so add the yoghurt in and fold again until the yoghurt is combined with the rest of the ingredients. Spoon into your loaf tin and smooth the top.

Bake in the oven for around 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the loaf comes out clean. When ready leave to cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Then all there is left to do is enjoy!