Winter Pavlova with Pears, Mascarpone & Caramel Sauce

A luscious confection of vanilla-scented poached pears, a brittle meringue case, flurries of cream and a scandalously rich caramel sauce. This isn't a dessert you can rustle up in an instant - it takes time and effort to prepare - but I hope you will give it a bash, because I reckon you (and your guests) will be delighted by the result.

Winter Pavlova with Pears, Mascarpone & Caramel Sauce.

Classic Pavlovas have a slightly squidgy centre, but this is a rather dryer version, because I'm a fan of crackly meringue that's as white as snow and crumbles to a sweet dust in your mouth. Admittedly, this isn't easy to achieve when you're baking such a large volume of whipped egg white, because much depends on your oven, the freshness of your eggs, the humidity in your kitchen, and the other vagaries of the sugar/egg relationship.

I'm not a natural when it comes to any type of meringue - damn, it's tricky to make - but after much experimentation I've found that a slow drying-out process is the way to go.

What makes this dish special is the lovely taste of home-poached pears.

You can use any variety of pears for this recipe, provided they are small, sweet and just ripe. Yes, I know this is a tall order, because most pears are perfect for 20 minutes before they collapse into a floury mush.  But there are ways around this - please see my Cook's Notes at the end of this page.

If you're in a hurry, feel no shame in using excellent South African tinned pears. Your finished Pavlova won't look as glamorous, sure, but it will still taste glorious. And please keep the syrup for poaching other fruits. I put some cut-up guavas into the left-over syrup to cook, and my daughter described them as tasting of 'flowers and happiness'.

Winter Pavlova with Pears, Mascarpone and Caramel Sauce

5 extra-large free-range eggs
a pinch of cream of tartar
250 g caster sugar
1 x 250 g tub fresh mascarpone
1 cup (250 ml) fresh cream
1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract
¼ cup (60 ml) flaked almonds, lightly toasted to golden-brown in a dry frying pan

For the poached pears: 
5 small, ripe pears
2 cups (500 ml) water
1 cup (250 ml) caster sugar, or light brown sugar
1 whole vanilla pod [optional]
a thin slice of lemon, peel on

For the caramel sauce: 
1 cup (250 ml) caster sugar
5 Tbsp (75 ml) water
½ cup (125 ml) cream
3 Tbsp (45 ml) butter

First make the Pavlova. Heat the oven to 160 ºC. Separate the eggs, placing the egg whites in a spotlessly clean metal bowl. Add a pinch of cream of tartar. (Keep the yolks for making mayonnaise!)

Using an electric beater or a food processor fitted with a balloon whisk, beat the egg whites until they are standing up in stiff, dryish peaks.

Now trickle the caster sugar into the egg whites, a few tablespoons at a time, beating well between every addition. Take your time over this. When you've added all the sugar, continue beating for another 3-5 minutes, or until the meringue is extremely thick, firm and shiny (with no sign of grittiness when you rub a blob between your fingers) and easily holds its shape without drooping. (See Cook’s Notes for more tips)

Line a metal baking sheet with baking paper (put little blobs of meringue on six points under the paper to stick it down). Draw a circle on the paper, using a dinner plate as a template.

The meringue should be very thick & glossy. 

Spread a third of your meringue mixture over the paper, in an even circle. The easiest way to do this neatly is to place a pile of meringue in the centre of the circle, and then - using a palette knife - gently press down and out to create a neat, swirling circle.

Now place generous dollops of the remaining meringue around the edges of your circle (see picture; left).

Place the baking sheet on the middle rack of your oven, and immediately turn the heat down to 110 ºC (oven fan off). Bake for for an hour and a quarter then switch off the oven (don't open the door!) and let the meringue case dehydrate for for at least 8 hours, or until it is crisp and dry.

In the meantime, prepare the pears. Fill a large bowl with cold water and squeeze in the juice of half a lemon.  Using a potato peeler, neatly remove the skin from the whole pears, leaving their stalks intact. Drop each pear, as you've peeled it, into the bowl of lemony water.

The syrup is flavoured with vanilla & lemon. 

To make the poaching syrup, place the water, sugar, vanilla pod and lemon slice in a saucepan, set over a medium heat and bring to the boil. When the syrup begins to bubble, stir it gently until all the sugar crystals have dissolved. Simmer the syrup for a further 5 minutes.

Place the whole pears in the syrup and bring up to a gentle simmer. Cover the pot with a lid, turn the heat down to its lowest setting, and poach the pears for 5-8 minutes, or until they are just soft.

Let the pears cool completely. 

Fish the pears out of their poaching liquid and set aside on a plate to cool. Cut them in half lengthways, leaving a stalk on one half. Using a teaspoon or your thumbnail, gently pop the oval core out of each pear half, tearing it up towards the stalk to remove the fibrous threads.

Put the mascarpone into a bowl and beat it thoroughly until smooth. (It helps to leave it at room temperature for a few hours, until softened.) Whip the cream to a soft peak in a separate bowl, add the vanilla, and gently fold this into the mascarpone.

To make the caramel sauce, spread the caster sugar evenly over the bottom of a dry, thick-based frying pan, and sprinkle over the water.  Cook over a medium-high heat until the caramel is dark, rich golden brown, swirling the pan to distribute the dark-gold areas (see Cook's Notes)  Whisk in the cream, and then add the butter. Stir well and set aside to cool.

To assemble the Pavlova, fill the centre with two-thirds of the cream/mascarpone mixture, and arrange the pears on top, stalks pointing up. Place blobs of the remaining cream on top. Drizzle over the caramel sauce, and scatter the almonds on top.

Serves 6-8.

Cook's Notes

1. The meringue must be really, really stiff and glossy, or it will collapse in the oven.

2. The caramel sauce I've used here is loosely based on Gordon Ramsay's recipe. This is arguably the trickiest part of this recipe, as caramel is temperamental: not only does it burn with alarming speed, but it also has a tendency to crystallise for no apparent reason,  If your caramel suddenly turns thick and grainy after the sugar has melted, it cannot be rescued. Tip it into the bin, and start again in a new dry frying pan. Don't stir the caramel, and use a pastry brush to sweep any grains of sugar off the sides of the pan as it is heating.

3. To catch pears at their peak, place them in your fruit bowl alongside other fruits, which will hasten the ripening process. Check them twice a day by firmly pinching the flesh just below their stalks - when this is just soft enough to yield to the touch, peel and poach them, as described above. You can keep the pears, whole their syrup, for many days, until you're ready to make this dessert.

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Pears en Papillote with Chocolate and Vanilla

I love food baked in a rustling paper parcel because opening one up is like unwrapping a present. And these paper-wrapped pears certainly smell like Christmas when you unfurl them. This is a dead-easy, quick recipe that can be made well in advance - even the day before. What's more, you can bake them, put them to one side, and then pop them back in the oven - the microwave oven works well too - for a few minutes to heat through just before you serve them.

Pears en Papillote

The idea for this recipe came to me while I was admiring a shining heap of pears at my local supermarket. Even though I love pears, I hardly ever buy them for the family fruit bowl because their ripening process irks me. One minute they're rock hard; a nanosecond later they've turned to gritty brown mush.

I thought I might stew the pears and put them under an almond crumble topping, but then my eye fell on a roll of greaseproof baking paper I'd just put in my trolley. (I've recently been baking baby potatoes in paper parcels, with fresh mint, salt and butter; this method produces the most tender and fragrant spuds).

It's like opening a present. 

Do use unblemished, crisp, firm (but not rock-hard) pears for this dish. I used forelles, but I think this would work just as well with Packhams, golden pears or Bon Chretiens.

I know it's an extravagance to use a whole vanilla pod for each pear, but you can recycle the pods by drying them out on a sunny windowsill. Use them for the next batch of pears you make, or to flavour a jar of caster sugar.

If you can't afford a vanilla pod per pear, scrape the seeds out of a single split pod and mix them with the softened butter before you stuff the pears.

Pears en Papillote with Chocolate and Vanilla
a lemon
6 crisp, firm, just-ripe pears
6 vanilla pods (or three pods, split horizontally in two)
a slab of good quality (75%) dark chocolate
3 tsp (15 ml) butter, softened
6 tsp (30 ml) white sugar
extra sugar for dusting

If you're going to bake these right away, preheat the oven to 170 ºC. Cut out six circles of greaseproof baking paper (or parchment paper) each the size of a large dinner plate. The best way to do this is to put a plate face-down on the paper and swiftly cut around it with a sharp craft knife.

Fill a large bowl with cold water and add the juice of half a lemon. Peel the pears using a potato peeler and drop them immediately into the lemony water. When all the pears are peeled, use an apple corer to remove the cores and stalks (take the entire core out, so the chocolate can run out as it melts).. Trim the base of each pear so it stands up upright. Put the pears back into the water to prevent them from browning.

Getting the pears ready for wrapping.

Put a circle of baking paper on the counter and stand a pear on it. Into the cavity place, in this order, two or three squares of chocolate broken into small pieces, half a teaspoon of butter, and a teaspoon of sugar.

Push a vanilla pod into the cavity, allowing its end to protrude like a pear stalk. Sprinkle two more teaspoons of sugar and a few drops of lemon juice over the outside of the pear. Gather up the edges of the circle to form a parcel and secure with a piece of damp raffia (or string) tied just above the top of the pear. Repeat with the remaining pears.

Leave the pears to stand for 45 minutes. This isn't essential, but it will give the sugar time to dissolve on the surface of the pear. (At this point, you can put the parcels in the fridge and leave them there for up to 8 hours.)

Place the pears on a baking sheet and bake at 170ºC for 40-45 minutes, or until they are very soft but not collapsed.

Place each parcel into a shallow bowl and serve immediately, with whipped cream or custard.

Serves 6. 

More of my recipes using pears:

• Hot-Cross-Buns Bread-and-Butter Pudding with Pears
• Fennel Salad with Caramelised Pears, Walnuts and Blue Cheese
• Pear and Blackberry Almond Crumble

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Fennel Salad with Caramelised Pears, Walnuts and Blue Cheese

This delicious winter salad packs a fistful of flavours: crunchy baby fennel, sweet pears, toasted walnuts and nuggets of creamy blue cheese. My local greengrocer is full of lovely little baby bulbs of fennel, a vegetable I really enjoy, but don't eat often enough. You don't need to caramelise the pears, but I like their gritty stickiness.

Fennel Salad with Caramelised Pears, Walnuts and Blue Cheese

6 small bulbs fresh fennel and their tops
a handful of walnuts, broken into pieces
3 ripe, but firm, pears
2 T white sugar
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese (Gorgonzola is gorgon-gorgeous with this)
4 T (60 ml) olive oil
1 t (5 ml) walnut oil (optional)
2 T (30 ml) white wine vinegar or white balsamic vinegar

Trim bottoms off the fennel bulbs and cut off the leaves and stalks. Using a mandolin, or a very sharp knife, cut the bulb (vertically) into paper-thin slices. Place in a bowl.

Heat a frying pan, add the walnuts and toss over a medium heat until lightly toasted. Set to one side.

Sprinkle the sugar over the base of the same frying pan and heat, without stirring, until it melts and begins to turn golden. While the sugar is heating, cut the pears vertically into eighths and remove the cores. When the sugar has turned to a rich golden brown, turn down the heat and place the pear slices in the caramel. Cook for a minute or so, or until lightly caramelised, and then flip and cook the other side. Remove from the heat.

Arrange the fennel slices and pears on a platter. Top with toasted walnuts, crumbled blue cheese, and a sprinkling of the feathery green fennel tops.

To make the dressing, whisk together the olive oil, walnut oil and wine vinegar. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle over the salad and toss well.

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Pear and Blackberry Almond Crumble

If you're faced with a fruit bowl full of pears which are going to be ripe and perfect for precisely the next two hours before they collapse into brown fur, try this pretty crumble pudding. 

My husband, who was born in England, is putty in my hands when faced with any sort of fruit crumble or cobbler, especially if it involves berries of any kind. He suggested adding the blackberries to the crumble, and the almonds were my idea. This filling is quite tart: add more sugar to the fruit if you like.



Pear and Blackberry Almond Crumble

one small lemon
8 pears
1 punnet blackberries (about a cup and a half)
60 ml (4 Tbsp) white sugar or caster sugar

For the crumble:
200 g cake flour
150 g cold butter, cut into cubes
100 g (about 1/2 cup) white sugar or caster sugar
50 g flaked almonds, plus a few tablespoons extra for topping

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Squeeze the lemon juice into a 28-cm-diameter pie dish. Now peel and core the pears, and cut them into wedges (an apple-wedging tool is perfect for this job).

Add the pear slices to the lemon juice in the pie dish as you prepare them, so they don't go brown. Scatter the blackberries over the pears and then sprinkle with the sugar. Set aside. Put the flour and the butter into the jug of a food processor fitted with a metal blade and process until it resembles fresh, fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and the rest of the flaked almonds. Pulse in the food processor until the almonds are well ground.

Cover the fruit with the crumble mixture, making sure that every piece of fruit is covered (but don't press down on the topping). Break up any claggy bits by fluffing them with a fork.

In the meantime, heat a frying pan, add the remaining flaked almonds and toss over a medium heat until golden and toasted.

Bake at 180°C for 40-45 minutes, or until the topping is crisp and the fruit juices are
beginning to seep from the edges. Sprinkle with the toasted almonds.

Serve with cream or custard - or both.

Serves 6-8.


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