Caramelized Pears in Wine with Mascarpone Cream
Caramelized pears can be made all year round. The fruit keeps well and is almost always available in the shops. Late and “winter” varieties are the most convenient to cook with, and they are much firmer than summer pears and not as juicy. After a simple heat treatment the pears can be used for all kinds of desserts, as a filling, or to decorate cakes and pastries.
The best pear dessert I have ever come across was a huge pear cooked in spiced wine, drizzled with caramel or thickened syrup, and served with a scoop of creamy cheese. It was an incredibly sweet dish, a real treat. My daughter and I decided to make something similar, based on our own tastes and the ingredients we had at hand.
Caramelization is the transformation of the sugars in fruit. Ripe fruit contains a lot of glucose, fructose and so on, and when heated, chemical reactions change its structure and colour, and the typical “caramel” aroma appears. You can heat the fruit itself, or you can boil down the sugar syrup it was poached in.
For this dish we decided to cook the pears in wine. That gives soft, fragrant fruit with a lovely colour and an incredible flavour. They can be served as a dessert on their own, or used as a main ingredient in various pastries. The pears cook quickly. They soak up the syrup, which is then boiled down to the consistency of thick honey, with a caramelized effect.
Choose firm but ripe fruit. This is easy, since late varieties of pear are quite hard and keep for a very long time. It is also best to pick pears weighing 200-250 grams – they poach well, and the size is just right for individual desserts.
Peel the pears and poach them in a mixture of wine and water with aromatic spices and sugar. The liquid determines the colour of the pears: red grapes will tint the fruit. We used a mix of white and red wine to get a pleasant dark shade. Many people avoid cooking with real wine, but there is nothing to fear, because the alcohol simply evaporates during cooking. Someone once told me grape juice works just as well, but I haven't tried it.
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Pear CharlotteIngredients
6 servings
- Firm ripe pears (200-220 g) 6
- For the syrup
- Natural wine 1.5 cups
- Sugar 1.5 cups
- Star anise, cinnamon sticks, allspice, cloves, a whole nutmeg to taste
- For the cream
- Mascarpone 250 g
- Powdered sugar 2-3 tbsp
- Cointreau liqueur 1 tbsp
Step-by-step recipe
- Good caramelized pears come from firm, green fruit, which few people buy in season. They are believed to need time to ripen. Overripe pears can lose their shape while poaching and turn into jam. For purely aesthetic reasons, it is better to choose pears with a natural pear shape and the stalk still on.
- Prepare the syrup for poaching the pears. We mixed 1 full cup of dry red wine and 0.5 cup of white. Add the sugar and spices to the wine. All the spices are whole, not ground. We added 2 cinnamon sticks – though, to be honest, real cinnamon is rare for us, and what is sold everywhere is the less fragrant but similar cassia bark. We also dropped a whole nutmeg into the syrup, three stars of star anise, and 4 allspice berries and 4 cloves.
- Carefully peel the pears, keeping the base where the flower was and the stalk. Cut off any damaged spots. Put the peeled pears into the syrup and top up with water. The liquid in the pot should be deep enough for the pears to float. Put the pot on the heat.
- Once the sugar has dissolved and the liquid comes to the boil, cover the pot with a lid and reduce the heat to the point where it is still simmering. Cook the pears under the lid like this for about 1 hour. So that the caramelized pears keep their shape, do not rush the heating. When they are done, check that the pears are soft inside – it is easy to do by piercing one with the tip of a thin knife. It may take longer, depending on how firm and how large the pears are.
- Take the poached pears out of the syrup and put them on a plate to cool. Cover them with something so they don't dry out. The syrup now needs to be boiled down until it starts to caramelize. Pour it into a small saucepan and put it on the heat. Stirring constantly, bring the syrup to the boil and cook over medium heat until it thickens considerably. A pleasant aroma typical of caramel will appear. The hot syrup should be as thick as very thick honey. As it cools, it will become even denser.
- While the pears cool, make the cream. We settled on a mix of Italian cream cheese, mascarpone – a small 250 gram tub – with powdered sugar. Don't make the cream too sweet, so you keep the flavour of the cheese. 2-3 level tbsp of powdered sugar is enough. For aroma we added 1 tbsp of Cointreau liqueur. Mix the cream with a mixer and chill it well.
- Caramelized pears with cream are best served as a dessert on their own, in small rimmed plates or dessert glasses. Try to stand the pear upright or at a slight angle. You can make a cut in it if you like. Put a scoop of sweet cream beside it. Then carefully drizzle the syrup over the pear so that it runs down the pear and onto the bottom of the plate. To set the caramel syrup, put the plate in the fridge.
- So there it is, a wonderful and simple dessert of pears in wine with caramel syrup and cream, ready to serve. It needs no decoration – it is a decoration and the highlight of a good dinner in itself.
Kitchen probe thermometerAliExpress
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Measuring cups and spoonsAliExpress| Yield: | 6 servings |
| Calories: | 150 kcal per 100 g |
| Prep: | 15 mins |
| Cook: | 1 h 15 mins |
| Total: | 1 h 30 mins |
| Cuisine: | French cuisine |
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