Description
Easy Poached Pears is a make-ahead autumnal recipe which transforms unripe pears into a sumptuous dessert through slow cooking them with Marsala Wine, cinnamon and vanilla.
Ingredients
Scale
- 6 unripe pears
- 600 ml Marsala
- 75 g caster sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence (or a vanilla pod)
Instructions
- Set your oven to 250 F/130 C/Gas Mark 0.5.
- Remove the skins from the pears using a vegetable peeler. Take a thin slice of the base of each pear. This will give it a flat bottom so that it will stand up on the plate when it has been cooked.
- Put the Marsala, sugar, cinnamon stick and vanilla essence into a heavy casserole. Heat until the liquid is simmering and the sugar has dissolved.
- Place the pears in the casserole on their sides. Put the lid on the casserole and place in the oven.
- Bake for 1 hour and then turn the pears so that their other side is in the liquid. Bake for a further 1 hour.
- Remove the pears from the liquid and set aside in a dish to cool.
- Place the casserole containing the liquid on the top of the stove and boil rapidly with the lid off for around 10 minutes. The liquid will reduce by about one third.
- Place both the pears and the liquid separately in the fridge to chill. When you are ready to serve, place the pears on individual plates and pour some of the liquid over them. Good accompaniments are whipped cream or a mixture of half whipped cream and half mascarpone or vanilla ice cream.
Notes
This is a vegan recipe and can be served with non-dairy cream or ice-cream.
If you don’t have Marsala Wine, you can use red wine, port, cider or perry (pear cider) as alternatives.