brown butter chocolate pear cake

Brown Butter Chocolate Pear Cake will have you falling in love with this fruit! Sweet pear chunks are combined with buttery cake batter and a handful of bittersweet chocolate for the perfect combination. 

You know what I accidentally realized the other day? That my website looks significantly uglier on Firefox. Like, I don't know why the coding doesn't play nice over there but please, do yourself a huge favor and visit my site with Safari or something. I promise I know what I'm doing with my blog design, okay 😉 But I digress. Today, I am sharing a cake that is a HUGE favorite in my household! This Brown Butter Chocolate Pear Cake is seriously going to change your life. I legitimately made this exact recipe 3 times in the past week because my brothers were running through it so fast. If that doesn't convince you that it's amazing, I don't know what will!

So we have a bunch of fruit trees in our backyard, but since they're only about 3 years old, they have yet to really give us more than the occasional peach or malformed apple. This year, however, our little twiggy pear tree gave it its all and gifted us a whopping 10 lbs of pears! I'm not kidding when I say all of its skinny little branches were bending from the weight of the pears. Aren't they so pretty? I'm thoroughly impressed. Since we have this massive pear stash, and most of them are still too hard to eat raw, this chocolate pear cake revival has really come at a great time. You only use about 3 pears per batch, so we still have plenty for more cakes!

This is yet another one of those recipes that I wrote about god-knows-how-long and has just sat, sad and forgotten, in the dusty archives. I mean, my family makes it regularly, but the ugly pictures and old date don't really make it Pinterest-friendly! I'm hoping this booster will help more people discover this amazing cake! Everyone always forgets about pears in the fall {myself included}, but this chocolate pear cake is so easy to make and tastes spectacular. The brown butter adds a little bit of earthy nuttiness, and the sweet pears and gooey bittersweet chocolate pair so well together! If you make ONE singular pear recipe this season, make it this one!

Looking for more sweet pear recipes? Check out my Chocolate Pear Tarts, Chai Pear Cinnamon Rolls, and my Browned Butter Pear Muffins! Happy baking!

{recipe adapted from SmittenKitchen}

Print Recipe

brown butter chocolate pear cake

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time45 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr

Course: Cakes

Servings: 8

Author: Valentina | The Baking Fairy

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• ½ cup 1 stick unsalted butter, browned (melted butter works too!)
• ¾ cup white sugar
• 3 pears peeled and diced small
• ¾ cup dark or bittersweet chocolate chips

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• Butter and flour a 9-inch springform pan, and set aside.
• In the bowl of a heavy duty stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the three eggs until very light, thick, and fluffy. With a KitchenAid, this takes 5-7 minutes, so if you are using a hand mixer, it will take longer!
• Add in the sugar, and beat a bit longer.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
• Have your brown butter (or melted butter) cooled and ready. As the mixer is on low speed, add in a third of the flour mixture, followed by half of the brown butter, then another third of flour, the rest of the butter, and the rest of the flour. Don’t overbeat! Finally, stir in about half of the pear chunks and the chocolate chips.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and sprinkle the remaining pear pieces and chocolate chips on top.
• Bake in your preheated oven for 40-50 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes, then you can open the sides of the pan and transfer to a serving plate to finish cooling.