Poached pear pies, such a fun dessert to serve friends. I loved the shape of them.

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The pears are poached with amaretto and honey and stuffed with marzipan, then they are covered in pastry and baked until golden.

We love to serve them warm with some salted caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream.

You can use chocolate or anything you fancy to stuff them with, i used marzipan to emphasise the almond flavour of the amaretto.

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It was so fun to make them, i love to create creative pies, you can see some of them on my Instagram account here. Usually i make apple ones stuffed with raisins and brown sugar, based on some apple dumplings that my nan used to make.

she served them with caramel sauce so that is why i eat these in the same way.

I love the combo of the warm pie and caramel and the cold ice cream.

Such a sweet dessert to end a meal. Because they are so sweet i add some salt to the caramel to balance it out a bit, they are also yummy with chocolate instead of marzipan.

Assembling the pear pies

They are easier to assemble than they look, but you need to be gentle and not stretch the dough as this can cause tension and cause them to crack when baking. Allow them to chill and rest before baking.

I used a mix of conference and bosc pears. The pears i used were very ripe. Poach them until they are soft, but not too soft as they will be baked and soften further.

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Tips before you start

• I find it is best to poach the pears the night before and chill them in the fridge in the poaching liquid.
• You can poach them with any poaching recipe you like.
• When assembling the pears in the pastry, carefully drape the top layer of pastry over and try not to stretch it. Then shape it around the pear to form the pear shape. I find that rolling a larger piece of dough than you need will help with this, so that is why i have included a recipe for a large batch of dough. You can freeze any left over dough.
• Place the pies on a lined baking tray and cover them and chill them in the fridge before baking
• Make a few small holes around the edges to allow steam to escape
• To make the leaves place them on to the pears in a 3d shape, and you can add small balls of rolled up dough underneath so they keep their shape.
• Add some salt to the caramel sauce you use to balance the sweetness. You can make it or buy it.
• Use chocolate or Nutella if you dont like marzipan, or what ever you fancy.
• This works well with apples, or i have made peach ones see here
• For a Christmas version i poached apples and pears in mulled wine and stuffed them with mince pie filling. See the poaching recipe for that version here
• I used scales to weigh the ingredients in grams for the pastry rather than using cups. This was so i could share a more accurate recipe with you. Because egg sizes vary in different countries and some flour brands absorb liquid better than others i find this is the safest way for me to share it.
• They can be assembled in advance and left covered on a lined baking tray to chill in the fridge over night.