Pear and Chocolate Cupcakes, and reverse mixing...

Ingredients

3 eggs, separated

2-3 pears

100 g sugar

100 g butter

150 g dark chocolate

1 shot of Rum or a drop of Vanilla essence

200 g self-rising flour

Usually I fold in the beaten egg whites at the end, but this time I wanted to experiment a bit, and also I wanted to coat some pear slices with meringue for decoration, so I started by whipping the egg whites. Coat a few pear slices with the egg white, then roll in sugar and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Then keep beating the egg whites and add the sugar, then the egg yolks. Melt the butter with 50 g of dark chocolate and add to the mixture. Then add the Rum (just a little, these cupcakes were for my kids also) or vanilla essence, and finally the self-rising flour. Fold in some pear cubes and divide between 12 cupcake cases.

Bake at 180°C for about 16 minutes, or until the cupcakes are cooked. Don't overbake them or they will become dry. Remove the cupcakes from the oven, lower the heat to 100°C and bake the meringue pear slices for 20 minutes, or until the meringue is set. Let them cool down in the oven. Melt the remaining 100 g of dark chocolate and spoon it over the cupcakes. Before the chocolate topping set decorate the cupcakes with the meringue pears and/or ...what you like! I used some Japanese chocolate mushrooms biscuits because they looked so cute!

Here with the pear topping

And here with the 'mushrooms'

Pears go very well with chocolate, and the 'reverse' mixing didn't seem to effect the end result really: the cupcakes were soft and light. Still, I think I do prefer to fold the beaten egg whites at the end, I will have to experiment more :-). The mushroom biscuits... I will use them again for decoration, a nice change from flowers, butterflies and the usual things you see on cupcakes, especially if you are making them for boys, as well as girls.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©

With this recipe I take part in the contest Cucina a prova di bambino

In italiano: la categoria potrebbe essere 'preparate con loro' visto che mia figlia, 12 anni, mi aiuta sempre a fare i cupcakes, ed anche questa volta ha misurato tutti gli ingredienti ed aiutato con le decorazioni... ma se ci avessi pensato prima avrei messo delle foto con le sue manine! E allora ho deciso che per ora partecipo nella categoria 'preparate per loro' e poi se ci riusciamo, entreranno anche i miei bambini con una loro ricettina. Grazie per il bellissimo contest a Gianni e la sua famiglia!