Fall Dessert

Vanilla Bean and Port Poached Pear with Honey-Cinnamon Mascarpone

Fall time offers up some amazing ingredients to bake up incredible desserts. Make sure you take advantage with this recipe, it's simple, light and sure to please. When choosing your pears, make sure to choose ones that are still firm. If your using soft pears, they're more likely to fall apart causing an unwanted headache. Second, what ever you do, don't break into the old bottle of port from 1977 that you've been saving for a special occasion! These pears are special but not that special! There's so much sugar in the syrup and you cook it for so long that a good port would loose all of it's goodness. A cheap cooking port will suffice. Ok here we go...

In a pot just big enough to hold your pears combine:

2 cups port

1.5 cups sugar

1/2 cup water

1/2 ea orange, sliced

3 ea cinnamon sticks

5 ea cloves

1 ea vanilla bean, sliced and scarped

3 ea pears

Bring this to a simmer. Meanwhile, peel your pears. Peal your pears and leaving them whole, place them in the port syrup. You want them to be almost completely submerged, if they aren't, add a bit of water to bring the level up. Be sure not to dilute the syrup too much with water because it's the sugar in the liquid that helps the pears hold their shape as they cook. Too much water would turn into mushy pears, still tasty but not the goal. If you've find that you're having to add more then 1/2 a cup of water, just add about 1/4 cup of sugar.

Cover the pot and on a very low simmer, cook the pears until they are tender when pierced with a skewer. This till take a while but also depends on the firmness of the pears you started with. Make sure to turn the pears often to ensure even cooking.

While the pears are cooking. make the honey mascarpone filling. Simply mix mascarpone, honey and cinnamon to your desired sweetness, set it aside.

When the pears are done, remove them to a plate to cool. Remove about a cup of the cooking liquid to a small pot and reduce it until it's sauce consistency. As the sauce reduces, it will thicken, make sure you consider that it will continue to thicken as it cools. To achieve the correct consistency, boil it until the bubbles become thick and close together, let it cool and adjust your consistency by either adding more of the cooking liquid to thin it or reducing it further by boiling it again.

Once the pears are cool, slice them lengthwise and remove the core with a melon baller. Fill the centre with the mascarpone filling and plate with a little bit of the sauce.