Pear Chestnut Cake

It really wasn’t until I started baking out of Dessert Person where I understood how much fruit can be used in desserts. I knew people used fruit for things like pies and tarts on the Fourth of July, but never would I have expected to use them in ways like I did with the Pear Chestnut Cake.

I love pears, but I only started buying them from the produce section a few years ago (not proud to say, but we always bought the ones processed in plastic cups for my school lunches as a kid). Pears really can be a dessert all on their own.

Chestnuts, however, are a different story. I’m not sure I’ve ever truly had one, unless it was in a dish that I wasn’t aware of. I ordered a few bags of shelled, roasted chestnuts online for this recipe (I did not miss Claire’s note about chestnuts being a pain to roast and peel myself). After hearing the lyric “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” every holiday season, that always made me think chestnuts were supposed to be crispy. However, these things looked more like boiled peanuts. They had a wet consistency with a scent that is hard to explain; it was nutty, but not like a peanut or pecan. The chestnuts made me a little leery on whether I’d like the outcome of this recipe.

Another ingredient I was excited to try was crème fraiche. I always see people like Martha Stewart use it on caviar, so I felt rather bougie using it.

After so many apple recipes, I greatly appreciated how easy it was to slice and core pears! I wasn’t sure if there was a formal way to slice them thinly, but I think I did pretty well with that part. Truth be told, I never knew you could eat the skin of a pear; this is probably very obvious to most people, but like I said before, these are the types of things one discovers after eating processed, canned pears their whole life.

I waited until I made the cake batter to decipher whether I wanted to use a skillet or springform pan for this recipe. Some of Claire’s cake recipes make a lot of cake batter; while I would have loved to use my new Le Creuset for this one, I wasn’t certain it could hold all the batter at the end once the cake started rising, so I played it safe with a springform pan.

After mixing together my dry ingredients, I started the process with the chestnuts at the stand mixer. This is where I began understanding why having a saturated chestnut is important for this recipe; it was very easy to break down into small pieces with the mixer, helping form almost a paste for the cake batter. As someone who doesn’t like crunchiness in a cake or brownie, I plan to keep this noted in the back of my brain for future recipes that may be good with nutty flavor.

I then added the eggs, wet ingredients like the crème fraiche, and dry ingredients. As Claire mentioned, it’s definitely a good idea to fold the batter a few times before and after adding the chopped pears, as the fruit is very fragile.

I arranged my pear slices in a spiral look and topped it all with the sugar. This cake took an hour exactly to bake; I think the moisture of the pears called for more baking time. I forgot to slice around the edges with a knife before opening the springform pan, but luckily none of the sides stuck to the pan. While I loved the pictures of the rustic appearance in a skillet, the cake turned out beautifully in a springform pan, and a slice of the Pear Chestnut Cake was just as pretty.

Of course, I then forgot to try it with a dollop of crème fraiche, but it’s really not necessary; this cake is super delicious on its own. I was surprised how much I liked it, but the more I think about the pear and chestnut combination, the more it just makes sense. If you aren’t a huge fan of apple desserts, this is a fantastic alternative. The pears really sink into the cake batter and almost disappear while still giving a burst of fruity flavor, and you would never know there’s chestnuts in this recipe aside from the nutty essence throughout the cake. As someone who immediately turns to chocolate when I’m craving dessert, I may very likely pull this recipe out again sometime for a gathering that may be better “pear’d” with some fruit (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

If Claire posts a video about this recipe on her YouTube channel, I will share it!