fruit

baked pears with wine and a scrumptious walnut cream

servings
4

method

When I worked in France, I would visit a lovely little bakery once a week to buy a tart filled with a really amazing walnut cream, with poached glazed pears on top. It was such a joy to eat that I wanted to give you a recipe based on these flavors – the combination is fantastic. At Christmas time, it’s nice to use chestnuts instead of walnuts, or you could even bash up or grate some good-quality chocolate to sprinkle over the pears as well.

Preheat the oven to 220ºC/425ºF/gas 7. Score down the length of the vanilla pod and remove the seeds by scraping a knife down the inside of each half. Put the pears into a tight-fitting ovenproof pot or pan, add the 125g of sugar, wine, vanilla pod and seeds, and the peel and juice of 1 orange and bring to the boil. Sprinkle over half the walnuts and then put in the oven to bake. Every so often, baste the pears with the syrup they are cooking in, as this will give them a nice glaze. Cook for around 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the ripeness, until the pears are tender but still holding their shape, then remove from the oven and allow to cool while you roast the remaining walnuts on a baking tray in the oven for 5 minutes – make sure you keep an eye on them as they can quickly go from golden to black and you don’t want burnt walnuts!

Remove the vanilla pod from the syrup. When the walnuts are done, either whizz them in a food processor or bash them up with a pestle and mortar until you have a paste. Whip up the mascarpone with the walnut paste, the zest and juice of the other orange and enough sugar to sweeten, and serve this cream with the baked pears, the nuts, some orange peel and some of the cooking syrup.

• from Jamie's Dinners

ingredients

• 1 vanilla pod
• 4 good-quality seasonal pears, peeled
• 125g dark muscovado sugar, plus a little extra
• 2 large wineglasses of red or white wine
• 2 oranges
• 200g peeled walnuts
• 255g mascarpone

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tried this recipe or a similar one? share your tips...

1. by jamie cousins on Fri 15 Jan 2010 @ 11:14

it doesnt look so nice but is doing well for my health times magazine :) Thanks, was alot of help!

2. by Florian Varga on Tue 29 Sep 2009 @ 20:22

This is perfect and just what i need, but how much money would you say this would cost? I am entering a juinor masterchef, and we have a budget of £6.50 for both courses (main and dessert). So do you think i could buy the ingredients for like £2-£3? and i need a subsitute for wine, and if anything is expensive, need a sub for that too

3. by carl on Sun 28 Dec 2008 @ 18:04

even better if you put the cream in the fridge for a while, gives a lovely contrast with the luke warm pear

4. by ciool on Mon 10 Nov 2008 @ 15:17

this also works well with peacen nuts =D thanks for the reicpe

5. by Aline on Thu 18 Sep 2008 @ 02:14

I love desserts with fruits (ok, I'm brazilian...). Thank you Jamie, for this amazing recipe!

6. by Fat fighters on Wed 17 Sep 2008 @ 14:24

Right NO fat kids i dont want u eating this, ur on a fatFREE diet OKAY? N-o.
I love u jake my favorite student.

7. by Raisa on Sun 14 Sep 2008 @ 01:06

I just made this dish, and it took me almost 1.5 hours to cook the pears.. But it's delicious!

8. by Kimberley on Thu 03 Jul 2008 @ 13:51

What wine should I use?

9. by debbie on Tue 08 Apr 2008 @ 08:39

tried this on a few people.. all loved it, fantastic flavours. i also did it brulee style with creme fraishe and muscavado even better! sorry about spelling! x

10. by test on Thu 03 Jan 2008 @ 16:03

test r

11. by Geena Mayon on Tue 21 Aug 2007 @ 13:16

I love peary dishes, and I tried to make this one without the nuts because I'm allergic and it turned out horrible...HELP

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