pears poached in dessert wine with with a vanilla & honey no churn ice cream
The key ingredient in this delicious dessert is the exquisite KWV The Mentors Noble Late Harvest, and its the kind of dish you knock together to impress a few guests.
The pears are poached in a flavoured sugar syrup and then finished off in a second poach with Noble Late Harvest and honey. The sauce is reduced to a sticky syrup and poured back over the pears, and served with a scoop of divinely light – no – churn vanilla and honey ice cream.
The recipe for the honey and vanilla ice cream comes from chef Mynhardt Joubert, and the poached pears are adpated from the dessert he created for the KWV Empyrean Collective honey inspired lunch. His dish included crumbled honeycomb and fried banana bread chunks which take it to another level. You can check out his full recipe on his site, along with all the other dishes he created to pair with The Mentors range of wines.
Good wine is a remarkable ingredient to use in cooking. When so much care an attention has gone into the making, it can only add incredible value. This is pretty much what the KWV flagship range, The Mentors is all about. The wines are made from the best grapes of a particular harvest which are rigorously selected, and then nurtured through the wine making process.
The Mentors range pays homage to this intricate relationship between winemaker and nature, and they liken what they do to what bees do when making honey. Similar to the honeybees’ nectar which is distilled down to approximately 20% of the content in order to achieve the precious liquid known as honey, at the end of the winemaking journey KWV also only ends up with small quantities of KWV The Mentors’ wines.
“Honey, similar to wine, reflects a sense of place,” Izele van Blerk, winemaker at KWV “honey made in the Karoo will taste distinctly different from honey produced by bees in Franschhoek, bees, like winemakers, work in dedicated and efficient teams to produce the best possible product. The bees to it for their queen, and in the case of KWV, we do it for the consumer!”
This is how the honey themed lunch came about and I’m so sorry I couldn’t attend as everything sounded lovely. This is the first time I’ve made a no-churn, no process ice cream in ages and it worked out so well. The cream and eggs whites are whipped to fluffy peaks to start with and then gently folded through the sweet components to make a very aerated and light textured ice cream. It’s not overly sweet and balances with the poached pears perfectly. The honey flavour is mild, so you could ramp it up more, but I like that it was subtle
*Cooks notes ~ Mynhardt uses tinned pears which are then poached briefly in The Mentors Noble Late Harvest, so I gave my fresh pears a quick poach in a basic sugar syrup to which I added star anise and cinnamon. If you have super ripe pears, you could skip this stage and go straight to poaching them in the wine just add a little water. I then added 2 tablespoons of honey to the liquid which when reduced down, formed a lovely syrup to pour over the pears. Be careful not to over reduce this as it goes too thick very quickly. The easiest way I know to de-core a pear is to use a melon baller / Parisenne scoop. It also creates a perfect half sphere hole in the pear which is perfect to gather all the sauce.
Make the ice cream the night before. It couldnt be easier.
Recipe serves 6
Poached pears
- 6 pears, peeled and cored with a melon baller (keep the stalks on)
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 star anise
- a cinnamon quill
- 1/2 cup The Mentors Noble Late Harvest
- 2 Tbsp honey
In a small to medium pot add the sugar, star anise, cinnamon and enough water to fill half way. Bring this to the boil. Cut the pears in half and place them in the sugar syrup and cook for about 5 – 10 minutes until knife tender but still firm. Remove the pears with a slotted spoon. Carry on boiling this sugar water until it reduces by 2/3 and you will have a delicious sugar syrup to make cocktails with later on
In another pot – this time wide bottomed, place the pears halves, pour in the wine, honey and about 1/4 cup of the first poached liquid, and bring this to a light simmer. Cook for a further 5 minutes and then remove the pears and set aside.
Allow the wine / honey liquid to reduce down by half and as soon as it turns to a syrup consistence, take it off the heat. Add the pears back and coat them with the same and to heat through.
Serve warm with a spoonful of the sugar syrup drizzled over and a scoop of ice cream.
Ice cream
- 500 ml of fresh cream
- 3 eggs separated and the whites whipped
- 1 tin of condensed milk
- 2 tablespoons of Champagne honey (or honey of your choice)
- 1 /2 tsp vanilla extract
First whip the egg whites in a stand mixer until stiff. Remove and set aside in another bowl
In the same bowl, whip the cream until soft peak stage and empty into the same bowl with the egg whites.
In the same bowl, beat the honey, vanilla, condensed milk and eggs together until well combined.
Fold the whipped egg whites into the whipped cream and then fold this through the egg yolk mixture until thoroughly combined. Empty into a freezer proof container and freeze overnight.
The KWV The Mentors range of wine is exclusively available online at the Empyrean Collective.
The KWV Empyrean Collective is a high-end, super premium online vault, aimed at wine enthusiasts interested in securing specific samples of KWV’s flagship offerings: older vintages of KWV’s highly awarded KWV The Mentors range are available, as well as the Heritage Abraham Perold Tributum and Abraham Perold Insignis wines. Other wine collections include Roodeberg Dr Charles Niehaus and Laborie Jean Taillefert. The Empyrean Collective also allows consumers to add rare fortified wines to their virtual baskets.
Visit www.kwvempyrean.co.za for more.
*Disclaimer – This post was sponsored by KWV
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Such a delicious looking set of poached pears and that ice cream looks absolutely amazing!
Yum!!! This sounds delicious and looks so elegant Sam!! xo
Wow….i am craving pears and ice cream big time….I will be trying the poached pears this for weekend. I will check out the KWV wine site. Your photos are wonderful.
Looks beautiful but concerning the condensed milk, a tin of 100 ml- 200 ml ?? Thanks
HI Ton, a standard tin in SA is 385gms (but 400gms is also ok if that is your tin size)
Hi Sam, I accidentally discovered your blog, am thrilled-beautiful photos and great recipes!
Greetings from Germany 🙂
Thnaks so much Jultchik – Im so glad you enjoy it
Hi Sam! I made this ice cream and your 3 ingred chocolate one this morning. That one is still in the ziplock waiting to be blitzed and devoured tomorrow… But this one!!!! Oh my!!! The twins and I had it for dessert with “ahem” brownies 🙂 It’s had a good 7 hours in the freezer….and it is gobsmackingly delicious, light and creamy. And so easy!!??!! My fIrst time ever making ice cream – and this no-churn one is a winner and one they’ll be begging for 😉 Thanks to you (all your recipes are always delicious and they work!! ) & chef Joubert, I’m the best Mommy in the whole world tonight !!! Xxxx
THnaks for the lovely note Linda – Im so glad you like that ice cream. Its a keep. Best
I don’t have access to the wine used in the recipe. What would be a good substitute? I have a mead-type wine which is made primarily with honey