I spent the past fall living in Florence, Italy attending cooking classes at La Scuola di Arte Culinaria Firenze "Cordon Bleu." While I was there, I discovered my favorite dessert--a chocolate and pear cake--at Ristorante Boccadama in the Piazza Santa Croce. I went to the restaurant several times to ask for the recipe, but they insisted there wasn't one. So I set out to recreate it myself. Although this version--my first attempt--is somewhat different, I liked it quite a bit and was nonetheless pleased to have discovered a different delicious combination of pear and chocolate. Another variation, which is closer to the Boccadama version, is to stir in the chocolate and the pears cut up in chunks in the batter instead of neatly layering them.

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