Chocolate and Poached Pear Torte

🧂 Ingredients

• 3 pears

  (medium sized, ripe and peeled)
• ½ lemon

  (juice only)
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 125 g coconut sugar
• 500 ml water
• 75 g oats

  (gluten free)
• 30 g almonds
• 30 g cashews
• 25 g coconut sugar
• 1 tsp maca powder
• 1 pinch of salt
• 60 g coconut oil

  (melted)
• 200 ml dairy free milk

  (soya or oat is my recommendation for this recipe)
• 200 g 70% dark chocolate

  (broken up into small chunks)
• 60 g coconut sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

• 1 Heat the water, lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon in a saucepan over a medium heat
  and stir until all of the sugar has dissolved and the liquid is lightly
  simmering (approx 3-5 minutes).
• 2 Add the peeled pears and simmer for 30 minutes, turning the pears occasionally.
  Try to resist eating them from the pan, they will smell delicious.
• 3 Once the pears have finished poaching, place them in the fridge to cool and
  harden up (making them much easier to slice) for at least 4 hours. Whilst the
  pears are chilling, make the torte because this will also need chilling time.
• 4 You will need a 20cm round dish with a removable base. Alternatively you could
  use small individual dishes with removable bases.
• 5 Blitz all of the torte crust ingredients in a processor, except for the coconut
  oil [https://geni.us/avvcoconutoil].
• 6 Add the coconut oil [https://geni.us/avvcoconutoil], blitz again and check that
  the mixture comes together slightly in your hands.
• 7 Add the torte crust mixture to your dish and press it down firmly to form the
  base. Place it in the refrigerator whilst you make the ganache.
• 8 To make the ganache heat the dairy free milk, vanilla and sugar in a saucepan
  and stir until the sugar has dissolved (approx 3-5 minutes). Remove the saucepan
  from the heat and place on a heat-resistant plate.
• 9 Add the chocolate chunks to the milk and stir until all of the chocolate has
  melted and combined with the milk. This will take 1-2 minutes and the finished
  mixture should look smooth and glossy.
• 10 Once the chocolate is fully combined with the milk, pour the mixture on top of
  the torte crust and put it in the fridge to set for at least 4 hours. At this
  point you may like to lick the remainder of the chocolate mix from the spoon…
  for quality control purposes obviously…
• 11 When at least 4 hours has passed, slice the cold poached pears, arrange them on
  top of your torte and serve!
• 12 If you have any trouble getting your torte out of the tin, soak a cloth in some
  hot water, ring it out and then hold it against the side of the pan for a few
  seconds. Repeat this around all of the pan and this should soften the edges
  enough to remove the torte without any difficulty.

Nutrition Info