There are two things that you may not believe about this vegan chocolate cake with poached pears recipe at first glance. The first is that it’s totally plant based (it is). Second is that it will NOT have you slaving away in the kitchen for hours (it won’t).

If you can mix together wet ingredients and dry ingredients (just like making any other cake) then you can make this red wine poached pear cake.

I got the idea for this cake from an Australian cooking competition. The competitors, a duo, were preparing a three course Italian-themed meal and they presented a non-vegan version of this chocolate and red wine pear cake for their dessert.

One of the teammates, an Italian, said that this cake comes from northern Italy and is a traditional family recipe that his mother taught him how to make.

Unfortunately, the team was eliminated from the competition that night (but not because the cake was terrible). Fortunately, the network posted his recipe online and it’s here .

So my task became how to veganize the chocolate and red wine pear cake. Not a problem.

You don’t need six eggs to make a cake rise. Remember the baking soda and vinegar volcanoes you used to make in elementary school?

Same deal in a vegan chocolate cake except controlled in a way that doesn’t make it spill out over you pan and onto the floor for your mom to clean up.

Any kind of plant milk and a bit of oil add moisture. Then it’s just a question of adding the spices, poached pears and chocolate sauce of the original recipe! Easy, see?

You need to be careful about your choice of pear for this cake. You’ll want to choose the absolute smallest pears you can find for two reasons.

First, they need to fit in your pan. Secondly, bigger pears could release too much juice into your cake causing the top to over bake and burn before the bottom has finished baking. Unfortunately I learned that the hard way.

For my second attempt at this cake I found that Spanish Ercolini pears were just the right size and worked wonderfully. If you can’t get a hold of them, just use the absolute smallest pear you can find.