Chocolate and Pear Upside Down Cake (with buckwheat)

This is a reprint - with adaptations - from a post I did fourteen years almost to the day after my mother died in 2012.  It is an excellent but somewhat deviant Valentine’s Day cake - for tastes that lean to fruit and crumbs - or a special February birthday cake.  My mother’s birthday was February 19th.

Fingering through my mother’s large crate of clipped and printed-from-online recipes I realized we saved the same ones - the Venetian Carrot Cake from the New York Times in 2007, for example.  I’m positive neither she nor I ever made it, but I know, as a daughter knows her mother, that we both loved the Venetian part.  I know we both heard the waters lapping along the canals, and both of us thought it fascinating that the Italians actually had an elegant translation of the heavy American health-food standard.

My mother saved recipes - as do I - just because they signaled an atmosphere, an ideal, a romance that, by taking out the scissors and clipping some newspaper, might someday become a possibility.   There was always the chance that there would be a quiet afternoon with espresso poured and two wedges of that Venetian Carrot Cake served on glass plates, and someone there discussing our favorite Venetian piazzas.

I haven’t made that cake, but, who knows, the recipe is still in my files.

My mother probably experimented with new recipes far more than a lot of people from her generation; she died in January of 2012 at the age of 78, but that was because taking scissors to newsprint, clipping a patch of cuisine, was both art and voyage for her.  More than the meal itself, she relished - and taught me thus -  the way food allows you to dream.

Both our files are heavy on Clafoutis and French Apple Cakes.  Anything called a Summer Pudding she and I loved, and she’d saved at least four versions of the English dessert heavy on berries and short on crust.  

Here’s a Valentine’s cake from my mother’s files, which says exactly who we both are:  we like our chocolate earthy, not gooey, with a side of fruit.  Also, we are both excited anytime there is buckwheat, which always adds that crumbly, soulful quality to a cake.

Here’s a note about the pears:  In my recent edition of this cake, served on superbowl sunday, the caramelization didn’t.  I had accidentally added only 1 tablespoon of water to the sugar and butter, and the combination never turned amber. But, hurrying, I poured the hot, tortured paste into the bottom of the pan.  I pressed the fanned pears into it and proceeded with the batter and baking.  The result was a wonderful extra ½ inch layer of sweetness.  No caramel, but still delicious.  

Chocolate Pear Upside Down Cake

For Pear Topping:

Ingredients

1 cup sugar 

1/4 cup water 

1 tablespoon butter 

3 pears, peeled, cored and sliced

For Cake:

½ cup flour

½ cup buckwheat (or use all flour, if you prefer.)

1/3 cup cocoa powder 

3/4 teaspoon baking soda 

pinch of salt 

1/4 cup butter 

6 ounces dark chocolate chips 

1 cup sugar 

2 eggs 

1/2 cup buttermilk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F and grease a 9 inch cake pan, set aside. To make the pear topping, combine sugar, water and butter in a saucepan and stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Bring mixture to a boil, then cover and cook for 3 minutes. Uncover pot saucepan and continue to simmer, gently swirling the pan as needed until the mixture turns an amber color. Carefully pour the sugar mixture into the prepared cake pan and set aside to harden. 

Press pear slices into it in a fan shape. 

To make the cake,  combine to mix flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside. Combine the butter and chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat and melt, stirring occasionally. Transfer melted chocolate to a mixing bowl and beat in sugar using an electric mixture. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the flour mixture and the buttermilk in additions, starting and ending with the flour mixture. 

Pour cake batter over pears and bake for 40-45 minutes or until cake springs bake slightly when touched. Cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes, then carefully invert cake onto a plate. Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.