Pear, pistachio and chocolate cake

Hello everyone, I'm very excited as I have just booked a bundle of tickets for the Sydney Writers Festival which takes place next month. I attended the launch of the program on Thursday night and was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of the program, so have now been through it and picked out about ten events I plan to attend. Many are free, some you have to buy tickets, but they are not expensive at all and it's such a great way to enjoy books, writers and reading!

Apologies to those of you who have asked me to sign you up for automatic delivery of my postings where this isn't working. I am obviously doing something wrong and need to find some time to work out the problem.

In the meantime, here is a recipe for a delicious cake that would be perfect for morning or afternoon tea. I do find it takes quite a long time to cook whenever I bake it, I guess because it's so dense with the fruit and the nuts and the chocolate. But well worth it and delicious served with thick cream! It is inspired by the beautiful home grown pears given to me yesterday by my darling friend Gianni.

Have a wonderful week, love from Jane xx

Pear, pistachio and chocolate cake

Makes one loaf

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and flour a 22cm x 11.5cm x 7cm loaf tin. Put 150g plain flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 150g caster sugar, a pinch of salt, 150g softened unsalted butter and 3 eggs in the bowl of a food processor and process until just combined (about 1 minute – do not over-process). Transfer the batter to a mixing bowl and stir in 200g good quality chopped milk chocolate, 1 peeled, cored and diced pear, ¾ cup pistachio nuts and the finely chopped zest of 1 orange until evenly distributed. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for about 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean (I found it took quite a bit longer in my oven). Allow to cool for a few minutes in the tin and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.