Divine Desserts!

I have so enjoyed not cooking for the past 8 months but if there's one thing that is going to get me back into the kitchen (with an oven LOL!), it's a recipe like this Poire Belle Héllène by Phillipa Sibley. Phillipa is a renowned pastry & dessert chef in Melbourne and she has a new cookbook coming out next month. Judging by the cover, it looks like a good one. 

http://www.smh.com.au

Ingredients

• Serves 6

• Poached pears
• 6 perfectly ripe pears (William, Packham or Bartlett)
• 625 g caster sugar
• 1.5 litres water
• 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
• Chocolate sauce
• 240 g best-quality dark couverture chocolate
• 155 ml milk
• 50 ml thickened cream (35% milk fat)
• 30 g honey
• 50 g butter, cubed
• Chocolate biscuit
• 115 g best-quality dark couverture chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)
• 50 g butter, cubed
• 40 g almond meal
• 40 g rice flour
• 80 g eggwhite
• 80 g caster sugar
• 40 g egg yolk (about 2)
• To serve
• Vanilla ice-cream, recently churned

My version of Escoffier's classic seems to be missing something at first? Where’s the chocolate sauce? On the plate, it appears very simple, but crack the warm chocolate biscuit and honey-scented chocolate sauce fl ows out. Then dig into the pear and you'll discover it’s filled with vanilla-flecked ice-cream. I love surprising people.

Method

For the poached pears

Prepare the pears and poach them using the quantity of sugar and water given on the left. Add the vanilla bean and seeds to the pan when the sugar has dissolved. Allow the pears to cool in the syrup, then refrigerate until chilled.

For the chocolate sauce

Finely chop or grate the chocolate and put in a bowl. Bring the milk and cream to the boil with the honey. Pour the hot cream mixture over the chocolate and stir until smooth and shiny. Add the butter, bit by bit, stirring until combined. Refrigerate the chocolate sauce until firmly set. Now put the chocolate sauce into a piping bag fitted with a 1.5 cm plain-nozzle. Line a small tray with baking paper. Pipe the chocolate sauce into lines about 10 cm long. Place in the freezer for about 30 minutes or until hard enough to cut into 5 cm lengths. Return to the freezer until needed.

For the chocolate biscuit

Cut six strips of baking paper measuring 7 cm x 5 cm. Spray the inside of six 4.5 cm diameter dessert rings with cooking oil spray and line each with a strip of paper so that the paper forms a collar above the ring. Spray again and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Finely chop or grate the chocolate and melt in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Let more than half of the chocolate melt before you give it a stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. When the chocolate has melted, turn off the heat and add the butter. Stir to combine and keep warm.

Sift together the almond meal and rice flour.

Whisk the eggwhite until holding soft peaks. Sprinkle in the sugar and whisk until shiny and holding firm peaks.

Place the egg yolk in a large bowl. Add one-quarter of the eggwhite mixture to the egg yolk and whisk to combine. Add this mixture to the chocolate mixture along with the dry ingredients. Thoroughly fold through, then fold in the remaining eggwhite mixture.

Place the mixture in a piping bag fitted with a 1.5 cm-plain nozzle. Pipe the mixture two-thirds of the way up the prepared rings.

Remove the 5 cm lengths of chocolate sauce from the freezer and insert one into each chocolate cylinder, taking care not to touch the base. Pipe in more mixture to fill each cylinder. Freeze for at least 3 hours.

Remove the cylinders from the freezer 1 hour before serving, but keep in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (Gas 4). Place the cylinders in the middle of the oven and bake for 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave for a couple of minutes before unmoulding.

To serve

Drain the pears on paper towel and discard the poaching syrup.

Gently slip a palette knife underneath each chocolate biscuit and lift off the rings. Remove the paper collar and place each biscuit on a serving plate.

To finish, fill a large piping bag fitted with a small plain nozzle with the ice-cream and pipe the ice-cream into the cavity of each pear. Place next to the biscuits and serve immediately.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/cuisine/desserts/recipe/philippa-sibleys-poire-bellehllne-20111031-1mrh6.html#ixzz1cRGXssaS