Vanilla Pears with Ice Cream

Roasting fruit like this is brilliant for enhancing the natural sweetness without having to rely on adding processed sugar. Fergal just loves these pears and will happily gobble up 4 or 5 quarters in one sitting. But they make a super lovely dessert for adults too. The quantities are totally a guideline, you can totally double or halve the recipe depending on how much fruit you need to have on hand.

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Vanilla Pears with Ice Cream

Total Time 1 hour hour

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

• 4 pears
• 2 hunks of butter
• 1 vanilla bean finely sliced or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• vanilla ice cream to serve

Instructions

• Preheat your oven to 180C (350F). Quarter your pears and remove core.
• Layer pears in a baking dish. Top with butter and vanilla. Cover with foil and baked for 30 minutes.
• Remove foil and stir. Return to the oven uncovered this time and bake for another 20-30 minutes or until the pears are soft and slightly browned.
• Serve warm with big scoops of ice cream.

Variations

no vanilla? – just skip it or replace with a cinnamon stick.

dairy-free – replace butter with coconut oil or just skip it.

vanilla ‘essence’ – this is basically fake vanilla flavour. I prefer to use real vanilla beans or real vanilla extract. But if ‘essence’ is all you can get a little will be OK.

different flavourings – replace the vanilla with lemon zest, a cinnamon stick, a very small piece of star anise.

more ‘saucey’ – add 1/2 cup dessert wine to the pears before covering with foil.

short on time – serve fresh berries or pears with ice cream or cream.

paleo (gluten, grain + dairy-free) – serve pears with coconut cream or coconut yoghurt.

Usage Suggestions

roast fruit ‘ice cream’ – freeze cooked fruit then when you’re ready to serve whizz it in the food processor with a little cream or coconut milk until you have a lovely icecreamy texture. Eat ASAP.

breakfast – serve cold with natural yoghurt and granola or roasted nuts.

as a side – works as a wonderful dessert accompaniment to things like panna cotta or my favourite fudgey chocolate cake.

pear & chocolate tart – see recipe over here.

almost instant crumble – use your roast fruit in place of the canned apples in this recipe.

Prepare Ahead?

Absolutely. Takes about 60 minutes. I like to make up a big batch to have on hand for quick healthy desserts during the week.

Storage Best Practices

Store in an airtight container or ziplock bag. Will keep in the fridge for 2 weeks or so. Can be frozen for up to 12 months.

Waste Avoidance Strategy

pears, apples, peaches, nectarines, apricots or plums – will keep for a few weeks (depending on how ripe they are) in a plastic bag in the fridge. For longer storage just pop them in the freezer to defrost and cook later.

butter – keeps in the fridge for months.

vanilla bean – pantry.

Problem Solving Guide

too dry – next time make sure your foil is well sealed around the edges. For now serve with a little extra butter or cream.

burning – oven temp too hot or in there for too long!

bland – it’s all about the quality and ripeness of your fruit. Next time use riper fruit. For now serve with ice cream can hide a multitude of sins. Adding a little sugar can help as well.

not sweet enough – add a little sugar, stevia, maple syrup or honey. Better to sweeten before baking so the flavour goes through the fruit but can be done at the end.

don’t like vanilla chunks – you could scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and discard the pods but you’ll be missing out on the extra flavour!
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