What do you do with over ripe pears?!? Make this!!!! It satisfied a desire for a dessert, provided a portion of fruit and reduced our food waste – a nutrition hat-trick!

This is very easy and fast to make, and looks impressive too if you have guests. I enjoy this without any topppings but it would also go very well with natural yogurt.

  • Gluten free
  • Paleo

Ingredients

  • 5-6 pears (mine were overly ripe & bruised….Hence the recipe!)
  • 350ml water
  • Dice-sized chunk of root ginger
  • 3 cloves
  • 1/2 cinnamon stick
  • 3 star anise
  • 3 tbsp maple syrup

Method

Serves 3-4

  1. Place the cinnamon, peeled/sliced ginger, star anise & cloves in a pan with the water. Bring to the boil, while peeling, halving & coring the pears.
  2. Place the pears in a steamer over the spiced water mix & steam for 10-15 mins depending on the size of your pears.
  3. Remove the pears but keep the pan on the heat, turn it up to boiling & add the maple syrup* Boil for around 10 mins to caramelise the mix. KEEP AN EYE ON IT! One second it’s liquid, the next it’s burnt!
  4. Serve by drizzling the spiced caramel over the pears, keep the ginger if you like spice, but remove the other spices before eating

*If you don’t like sweet foods then just enjoy the steamed pears without the sauce! The spiced steam flavours the pears amazingly well