Baked Pears in Puff Pastry with Molasses Sauce

Ingredients

Serves 2

2 Beurre Bosc or Packham pears
250ml water
250ml white wine
250g sugar
1 vanilla bean scraped
1 cinnamon stick
Zest ½ orange
Zest ½ lemon
1 star anise

Ready made puff pastry
Molasses sugar, about a handful

Method

To poach pears: Peel and core pears. Combine all other ingredients (except pastry and molasses) in a saucepan then add the pears. Heat slowly until sugar is dissolved. Bring up to a simmer, reduce temperature then cover with a piece of baking paper. Cook until pears are tender about 30 to 60 minutes. Remove pears and allow to cool.

Cut the pastry into strips, joining at the ends to make strips about 50cm long. Place a pear on the end of a pastry strip, the wrap the pears with the pastry spiralling towards the top. Brush a little egg and milk mixture over the pastry then bake at 200C until golden (about 20 minutes).

For the sauce,
Use molasses sugar to make a dry caramel. Heat a saucepan and slowly add the sugar a little at a time stirring as you go, ensuring the sugar has melted each time before adding more and being really careful that it doesn’t burn. Time and temperature is critical. Keep stirring, reducing the heat until it changes and becomes caramel.