Salted caramel poached pears with yoghurt and almonds
Poached pears are one of my favourite desserts to serve when I have guests over. Not just because they look, taste (and smell!) amazing, but because they are THE easiest dessert to pull together when you’re short of time.
Ingredients
- 6 pears medium, just-ripe (I used Taylors Gold)
- ¾ cup golden syrup
- 3 cups water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence or extract
- ½ teaspoon flaky sea salt
- 20 g butter
To serve
- ¼ cup almonds toasted
- 1 cup natural unsweetened yoghurt crème fraiche or mascarpone
Instructions
- Peel pears as nice and smoothly as you can with a vegetable peeler, leaving the stems intact. Slice 1cm off the bottom of each pear (so they can stand upright when plated). Set aside.
- Heat golden syrup in a medium-sized pot and gently boil for a few minutes until it turns a very dark brown caramel colour. Add water and vanilla (be careful when adding water incase it splashes). Stir until well combined, then add pears – they should be at least three quarters submerged in liquid.
- Cover pot partially with a lid and simmer for about 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes. Swirl the pears around in the syrup every now and again to make sure they are being evenly covered and cooked in the syrup.
- When the pears are tender and an amber colour, remove them from the syrup. Leave syrup on the stove top, add sea salt and boil for about 15 minutes until syrupy. Turn off the heat and stir in butter until smooth and glossy. Add a little extra salt to taste depending on how salty you like your salted caramel! Leave caramel to cool a little.
- To serve, arrange pears on a serving plate and drizzle salted caramel all over pears. Scatter with almonds and serve with yoghurt on the side.
Notes
Place everything in a pot, and let them simmer away until tender and golden amber, then keep simmering the liquid until it’s a gorgeous caramel syrup and your poached pears are soft and delicious. Y-U-M! You end up looking like a total kitchen pro when, really, you’ve hardly put in any effort (you don’t have to tell your guests that though!).
If you’re as much of a poached pears fan as me, you’ll love these recipes – Mulled wine poached pear, and Sticky red wine poached pear!