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baked pears with almonds and cardamom crème anglaise

Pears are among autumn’s protagonists. Stuff them with almonds or other dry nuts for a beautiful fall’s dessert.


ingredients (cost about 2,5€ pp)

for the crème anglaise

  • 300 ml milk
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 30 g sugar
  • 2 cardamom pods
  • 1 pinch of salt

for the baked pears

  • 4 pears
  • 50 g almonds
  • ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves
  • 25 g butter
  • 65 ml honey
  • 1 pinch salt

Hi, do you wanna eat a relatively healthy and light dessert? Something without a large amount of butter and with just a minimal quantity of sugar? So, try this dessert!!!

First of all we prepare the crème anglaise. We place a bowl in the fridge and let it chill.

In a small saucepan we heat the milk with the cardamom pods, crushed to help them release their aromas. Just before milk reaches the boiling point, we remove from the heat, we cover with cling film and let infuse.

Meanwhile, in a suitable for bain-marie bowl we whisk the yolks with the sugar and salt, until pale white. We incorporate the infused milk (after straining it and discarding the cardamom), little by little. Then we place the bowl over a bain-marie with hot, but not boiling water (water should not touch the bottom of the bowl) and gently cook the cream, whisking constantly until it thickens.

As soon as the cream starts to thicken and we see blisters bursting on the surface, we remove the bowl from the bain-marie, we transfer its content to the chilled bowl and we continue whisking, in order to lower its temperature and stop the cooking procedure. This way we ensure silky texture and total absence of lumps. We cover with cling film in contact and keep in the refrigerator to chill, until serving time.

Then we proceed to the baked pears.

We make a rather thick honey syrup, by diluting 2 parts honey with 1 part hot water. We also peel and chop coarsely the almonds. To easily peel them, we immerge them for a minute in boiling water.

We peel (not necessary if the pears are organic), cut vertically in halves and core the pears, trying to keep the stem on one half. We then “dig” a little more their cavity to create room for the stuffing. We brush them inside-out with 1 tbsp of the syrup and arrange them on a baking dish, lightly buttered. We have to point out that if the pears are not ripe enough, it is advised to poach them for about 20 minutes, before stuffing and baking them, to facilitate their tenderizing.

We mix 25 g of softened butter with 3 tbsp of the honey syrup, the blanched almonds and the spices, then we stuff the pear cavities with this mixture. We drizzle the rest of the syrup over the pears.

We bake in a preheated oven at 180 Celsius degrees (static function) for about 30 minutes or until the stuffing turns golden brown. During baking time, we baste every now and then the pears with the syrup from the pan. We then cover with foil, lower the heat to 150 Celsius and continue baking, until pears become very very tender. Total time depends on their size and ripeness.

We put some crème anglaise in the middle of each serving dish and place on top two halved pears. We drizzle with a little honey syrup and some crushed almonds left in the baking pan.

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Published in DESSERTS

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