My Favourite Recipe for Poached Pears and Chocolate Sauce

Pears and chocolate just go together. I love the colour of a pastel, poached pear with a gentle gloss of syrup and draped with dark chocolate and the flavours blend blissfully. 

I serve this dessert with cream into which I gently fold crushed hazelnuts and meringues. Ice cream is another option, of course.

The pears can be poached ahead of time but are always best served at room temperature. Instead of sweet wine you can use sugar syrup.

 

Poached Pears, Chocolate Sauce and Hazelnut-Meringue Cream

 

Poaching Ingredients

• 1-1/2T lemon juice
• finely grated zest of 2 well scrubbed lemons - use a microplane to achieve the fine zest
• 300ml fresh orange juice, strained - or the best quality bought juice
• 600ml sweet white wine - I use a dessert wine from Rutherglen in Victoria 
• 4 cloves
• 115g castor sugar
• 8 ripe pears - still firm and preferably with stems attached

Chocolate Sauce Ingredients

• 55g dark chocolate - I use Lindt 70% cocoa
• 15g unsalted butter

Other Ingredients (Optional)

• 300ml double cream
• 50g hazelnuts - toasted till golden then crushed fairly finely
• A few meringues 

Method

1. Put all the poaching ingredients, except the pears, into a saucepan - make sure it’s wide enough to allow each pear to stand upright
2. Heat the syrup gently to dissolve the sugar
3. While the poaching liquid is heating, peel the pears and cut a thin slice off the bottom of each. This helps the pears stand upright
4. Add the pears to the liquid, cover, and poach ever so gently until they’re just tender - about 20minutes or so - pierce with a fine skewer to test for tenderness through to the core
5. Gently remove the pears and allow to come to room temperature - covered 
6. Take the cloves from the poaching liquid and simmer until reduced to about a cup of syrup. It will get darker and thicker. Allow to cool to room temperature
7. At this stage you can let the recipe rest until you are ready to serve the pears
8. To make the chocolate sauce simply warm the chocolate and butter gently till melted. Don’t bring to boil
9. To make the hazelnut-meringue cream whip the cream and fold in the nuts and crushed meringues
10. To serve place a pear on the plate, pour over some syrup, drizzle with a little chocolate sauce and add a dollop of cream on the side

Inspiration for this recipe comes from Ursula Ferrigno, an acclaimed Italian baker and cook.

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