Telling PHP to put "&" NOT "&"

Hello, i'm trying to make a replace of a character in a string for an
'&'. I tried several ways of replacement but (cake)PHP, when I do
str_replace("_", "&") it returns "&"(HTML encoded). How can I get
the replacement to be an ampersand itself?

My code:
/**
* From client comens all special characters encoded
* HTML encoded but instead of &#NUMBER; => _#NUMBER;
* This Method restores to &#NUMBER;
**/
function restoreHTMLEcodedCharacters(&$pArray){
$amp = '&';
foreach($pArray as $key => $value){
if(is_array($value)){
restoreHTMLEcodedCharacters($value);
}else{
//debugger::log($value);
$value = preg_replace("_#", "&#", $value);
$value = str_replace("&", "&", $value);
}
}
return $pArray;
}

Thanks
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