Poached Pears with Sweet Blue Cheese and Chocolate

poached pears in red wine syrup

stuffed with sweet blue cheese and chocolate, and finished with a chocolate ganache drizzle

Some flavors just love each other.

Like red wine and chocolate. Or fruit and cheese.

In this exciting dessert, these two happy couples double-date to create a dish that’s elegant, impressive, and worthy of your finest entertaining. It’s substantial but yet light—sort of a combination dessert/fruit and cheese course, making it the perfect finish to a lovely meal. The flavors and textures will mingle in your mouth and do a little happy dance that will linger in your memories.

But they’re not complicated to make. We’re having these tonight to celebrate … ummm … it’s Tuesday.

Here’s something else that’s great about them—If you’re making them for a dinner party and have lots of other things to cook, all the components of this dish can be made in advance, the day before. Just assemble the pears within a few hours of serving them. Drizzle the 1-minute ganache and pipe the whipped cream rosettes (if using) at the last minute.

Here’s how it’s done.

Beautiful Bosc Pears are thinly peeled, leaving their stems intact.

A melon baller makes quick work of hollowing out the core from the bottom.

Then, you leave them alone to poach in sweetened red wine with vanilla and spices.

Once tender, they’re removed from the pot and allowed to cool while the poaching liquid is reduced to a thick syrup.

In a small bowl, soft, sweet blue cheese, such as Castello Double Crème Blue*, is mashed with a fork with a little confectioner’s sugar and bits of chocolate, The mixture is then stuffed into the hollows of the pears.

Then, some of the syrup is spooned into dessert cups. A stuffed pear is seated in the center of each, and the pears are drizzled with a 1 minute chocolate ganache (Literally. 1 minute start to finish). It’s not necessary, but you can add some dollops of whipped cream around the pears if you’d like. (You know how I love to paint the lily.)

*If you keep kosher: This cheese is not certified kosher. However, it does not contain animal rennet, so it is vegetarian dairy. For me, that works. If it doesn’t work for you, you could sub a kosher blue cheese, but when you choose one, bear in mind that it’s the soft creaminess of this cheese that’s so wonderful here. If you can’t find one that’s creamy, try blending it with a spoonful or two of heavy cream.

I like serving these melt-in-your-mouth pistachio cookies on the side, to add something that’s a little crunchy to the soft dessert.

Poached Pears with Blue Cheese and Chocolate

For the poached pears

We use whole spices so that they don’t make the syrup cloudy.

Ingredients:

6 Bosc pears—try to choose pears that are symmetrical, sit up nicely, and have artful-looking stems
1 bottle red wine—cheap, but drinkable
2 cups sugar (you may want a little more if your wine is very dry)
3-4 inch piece of cinnamon stick
8 cardamom pods
¾ teaspoon black peppercorns
6 juniper berries
1 teaspoon whole allspice berries
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or extract)

Method:

Choose a pot in which the pears will fit in a single layer, on their sides.
Combine the wine in the pot with the sugar and spices. Heat the mixture to a simmer and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Taste it with a spoon and add more sugar if you think it’s warranted.
Add the pears to the pot, cover the pot, and simmer the pears for 20 minutes. Every now and again, use a wooden spoon to turn them so that all surfaces of the pears are ultimately submerged in the wine. Keep the pot at a simmer, but be careful that it doesn’t boil over.
I say simmer for 20 minutes, but that’s an approximation. Just cook them until they’re done. You should be able to pierce them easily with a fork. You want them to be soft and tender so that you can cut into them with a spoon, but not so soft that they can’t be handled.
When the pears are done, remove them from the pot and set them on a plate to cool. Gently pick out any whole spices that have stuck to them.
Strain out the spices from the wine (the alcohol will all be cooked out by now) and return the wine to the pot. Bring it to a boil and reduce it to about half the volume. It will now be a thickish, sweet syrup.
Stir in the vanilla.

Make the stuffing

Ingredients:

1- 5 ounce half round of Castello Double Crème Blue Cheese (or other spreadable sweet blue cheese)
1 tablespoon confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons finely chopped bittersweet chocolate—60% works well.

Method:

In a small bowl, use the back of a fork to mash the cheese with the sugar until it’s smooth.
Fold in the chopped chocolate.

Put them together

When the pears are cool enough to handle, use a small spoon (like a demitasse spoon) to fill the hollow with the stuffing. Fill them generously, but not so much that the pears split.
Set them in individual serving bowls.
Pour the syrup evenly over the pears.

Make the 1 Minute Ganache

In a microwave-safe bowl, combine 6 tablespoons of the same chocolate you used in the filling with 4 tablespoons heavy cream.
Microwave it at full power for 20 seconds.
Use a fork to beat/stir it all together. At first it will look like a mess—it will look like it’s not going to work—but keep stirring until it’s lovely and smooth. (Microwaves vary. If the chocolate hasn’t melted enough, microwave the mixture a little longer, in 5-second increments.)

Using a spoon, drizzle the ganache over the pears.

Start at the stems and let the chocolate drip down the sides.

If you want to finish the dish with whipped cream, combine ½ cup heavy cream with 1 tablespoon confectioner’s sugar and ½ teaspoon vanilla in the bowl of your mixer. (Alternatively, you can use a hand mixer.) Beat the cream at high speed until soft peaks form.

Or use the stuff in a can. Just make sure it’s a good brand that uses only cream and sugar (and maybe a propellant) and possibly vanilla. Avoid the ones that are full of additives. They’re bad for you and they taste bad, too.

Pipe or artfully spoon some whipped cream around the pears, sitting on top of the syrup.

Admire your beautiful pears. Then eat them.