Dessert Wine and Vanilla Bean Poached Pears

With winter comes two of my favourite things: spices and warm fruit. 

While this recipe is simply four ingredients, it can easily be altered to suit the longings of your taste buds. The wine may be substituted for chai tea, the pears may be subsituted for apples or quince. You could add cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, honey; go crazy.

Here is my take on Poached Pear, with a little help from Donna Hay. 

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Ingredients:

Four Pears, peeled and sliced in two

1 1/2 cups of castor sugar

One vanilla bean

1 1/2 cups of white dessert wine

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. 

Place the halved pears in a baking tray large enough for them to fit nicely. Add the dessert wine and sugar. Then, slice the vanilla bean lengthways down the centre, scrape out the seeds with a knife and add them to the pears and wine. 

Cover the baking tray with aluminium foil and place into the oven for approximately an hour and a half. 

Enjoy warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or double cream and syrup from the baking tray.

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