Salted Caramel Pears

In winter more than any other time, there is something quite satisfying about baked fruit dessert as a finish to a meal.  Like a baked apples, this dessert is dead easy and the greatest effort lies in peeling the fruit.

I’ve used coconut palm sugar as it gives an instant caramel flavour, and has a low GI (of 35), but you could use brown sugar instead.  I like to use Packham variety pears that have just turned ripe.

Also a word of warning, the frypan handle gets red hot in the oven, so make sure you handle it very carefully when removing from the oven.  You could transfer to a baking dish to bake if you prefer.

2 just ripe pears
30g butter
1/4 cup coconut palm sugar (or brown sugar)
pinch sea salt
1 tblspn cream
a few drops of vanilla essence

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Place butter and sugar into a small frying pan (that is oven proof) and stir for a few minutes over medium heat until both ingredients melt into each other.

2. Turn off the heat and quickly peel the pears, half and remove the core with a teaspoon.  You can rub the pears with lemon juice to stop them turning brown, but if you work quickly and drop them into the pan as you go, I find I don’t need to worry.

3. Baste some of the caramelised sugar mixture over the pears and place in the oven.  Cook for about 30mins, or until the pears are tender.  Baste over the caramel again half way through cooking.

4. Once cooked, carefully remove the pears from the pan and keeping the sugar sauce in the pan.

5. To sauce that is in the pan, add in the vanilla, cream and pinch salt and mix through.  Pour over the pears and had another dollop of cream to serve.

Serves 2.