Chocolate and Pear Cake

Mario Virgona's recipe
Serves 10

Ingredients

600 grams of fondant chocolate
1/2 litre of milk
6 eggs
600 grams sugar
30 grams butter
1 kilo of pan di spagna (sponge)
6 pears
1 lemon
75 ml Rum

Method

Put in a double boiler saucepan 5 egg yolks and one full egg; 300 grams of sugar; 200 grams of chocolate. Mix well, adding the milk little by little.

Put on the fire over boiling water and cook slowly for about 15 minutes (adding the butter in the last five minutes) until it reaches the consistency of pastry cream

In the meantime, peel the pears and put in a saucepan with enough water to cover, Add half the sugar, the juice of a lemon and its skin to the pears and water.

Cook the pears slowly, take out and cool then slice finely

Take the sponge, cutting in three horizontal layers. Spread the chocolate cream across two layers, put on each layer slices of cooked pear, cover with the third layer of sponge so that you have three layers one on top of the other.

Soak with the rum

Cover the whole cake with the rest of the chocolate making sure that it remains even and shining