I love desserts. Given my sweet tooth, I make sweets or desserts quite often at home. There is nothing like biting into something sweet, knowing that it’s made at home. Especially if it’s super simple to make, I am all for it. Pears are not something that I like as it is. Give me apples any time of the day – but pears! Whenever we have pears at home, we keep pushing them out until they go mushy and we have to throw them off. That’s when I discovered poached pears recipe – thanks to MasterChef Australia. The usual way of preparing this seemed to be adding some sort of liquor along with sugar, bring it boil and poach the pears. As we both don’t drink or have never tried alcoholic liquors, I changed the recipe to suit our taste palates. I only use a syrup made of sugar and cinnamon. I poach the pears in the liquid until they are soft and a knife passes through easily. This is one of the easiest dessert recipes – all you have to do is bring everything to a boil. This tastes great as it is, but with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side, it tastes heavenly 🙂 Restaurant quality, hi-fi dish would be ready in no time at all, that too in the comfort of your home 🙂

  1. Start by peeling the pears. Cut the ends of the stalks.
  2. In a large pot, add all the ingredients except the pears and mix well. When the sugar has completely dissolved, add the pears.
  3. Keeping the flame on medium, let the sugar syrup boil. Keep cooking for 20-30mins. If the syrup gets thicker, keep adding some water.
  4. The pears should be cooked softly and when a knife is inserted, it should pass through smoothly. The sugar syrup would have turned a little thicker as well.
  5. Serve hot with some sugar syrup and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side.

I usually peel my pears before poaching. Additionally they can be de-cored as well. I used smaller variety of Kashmiri Pears and hence used 8 of them for the same quantity measurements. The cooking time for pears can vary between different varieties. Run through a knife to find the right consistency. Cinnamon gives a good flavour and sweet smell to the poached pears.