Poached Pear With Chocolate Sauce

Serves 4

A wonderful summer dessert. For anyone trying to be healthy and finding it very hard to give up dessert this is a perfect recipe, most importantly there is absolutely no reason to give up desert. You might want to cut down on the chocolate sauce or replace it with honey equally delicious but slightly better for you.

The soft juicy pear soaks up all the flavour of the vanilla, lemon and sugar and chocolate works shockingly well with soft tender pears.  This fresh light dessert looks beautiful, so would make a lovely final course to an elegant dinner party.

Ingredients

For Pears

• 4 Williams pears, peeled, leaving stalks intact
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1 lemon

For Chocolate Sauce

• 150g chocolate, at least 60% cocoa solids
• 150 ml water
• 100g caster sugar
• 45g unsalted butter
• 1 vanilla pod

Method

For Pears

1. Remove the core of the pear through the base, leaving the stalk intact.
2. In a deep sauce pan, place the pears and cover with water, squeeze in the lemon juice, add the sugar and vanilla pod, bring to the boil then gently simmer for 25-30 minutes until pears are tender.
3. Remove pears with a slotted spoon an place upright on four plates.

For Chocolate Sauce

1. In a heat proof dish over a saucepan of barely simmering water melt the chocolate and butter stirring occasionally. Add the caster sugar and water to the chocolate and mix well. Crack open the vanilla pod and empty the seeds into the chocolate and stir.
2. Spoon the sauce over the pears and serve.