Although these poached pears are excellent, they taste even better when they are flambéed right before serving to create a stunning dessert for a special occasion! Rum that has been set on fire caramelizes the sugar and extracts the pear taste.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 25 mins |
| Total Time: | 40 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups water
- ¾ cup white sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 6 Bosc pears – peeled, halved and cored
- 1 cup apricot preserves
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 tablespoons water
- ½ cup rum
Instructions
- Bring 1 1/2 cups water, sugar, and vanilla extract to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. Add 3 or 4 pear halves, reduce heat to medium, and simmer gently until the pears have just turned tender, about 5 minutes. Remove cooked pears to a warm chafing dish or metal serving dish, and continue to cook the remaining pears.
- Increase heat to medium-high, and boil the syrup until it has reduced to 1 cup. Stir in apricot preserves and return to a boil. Dissolve the cornstarch in 2 tablespoons of water and stir into the simmering syrup. Cook and stir until thickened and clear, about 30 seconds.
- To serve, pour the hot sauce over the pears, and sprinkle with the rum. Carefully ignite the rum tableside with the lights turned low. Let the alcohol burn out before serving.
- This recipe appeared in Allrecipes Magazine and was modified to include cracked black pepper in the apricot sauce for a sweet-savory kick.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 182 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 42 g |
| Cholesterol | 0 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 0 g |
| Saturated Fat | 0 g |
| Sodium | 13 mg |
| Sugars | 31 g |
| Fat | 0 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
We liked it. I didn’t have apricot preserves, but did have pear preserves which I used–go figure. We don’t like desserts overly sweet, so I cut the sugar to 1/2 cup… I would use a similar amount next time too. Would make again.
Too sweet! I would cut the sugar or add a sour or bitter note to the syrup while poaching. Maybe earl grey tea or lemon, etc.
This is my go to for family or company its great. The only thing I did was add some orange marmalade to the sauce.
Great flavor and presentation. Unfortunately some of my pears weren’t quite ripe and some of my guests were unable to eat this. Next time all pears will be tested for softness!
Delicious!
Very tasty! Good for a chistmas party. I would recomend cooking the pears longer. Also, I used raspberry preserves and they were great! Thank you!
I just made my first flambe! So easy and delicious with a very impressive presentation.
This was awesome! We had it as dessert after our Christmas dinner. It was really elegant and absolutely delicious. I served it with ice-cream and the syrup drizzled generously over all. Absolutely guest-worthy. Thank you!
I really enjoyed this recipe (it was my first poached pears dish I’ve ever made), but made just a few changes based on the ingredients I had on hand: I used a simple syrup of sugar and water and added two cinnamon sticks and about ten whole cloves. I peeled, halved and cored four medium red pears that were not quite ripe, then simmered them in the syrup for about 25 minutes. Once tender, I removed the cinnamon, cloves, and pears and all but 1.25 cups of the syrup, then added one cup of cherry preserves. Boiled that down and then reintroduced the pears and sprinkled on the rum. Lit the alcohol, which the kids LOVED, of course! Served with a bit of ice cream, this dessert was truly a hit!
Absolutely out of this world! I only used 4 pears but used 12 ounces of apricot preserves because my crowd likes their sauces! To save time, I poached the pears while dinner was in the oven and just turned the burner off while we ate. Left the pears in the saucepan to stay warm, transferred to a plate, added apricot preserves to saucepan and then cornstarch. Once the sauce was thickened I transferred the pears back to the saucepan and took the whole thing to the table to flambe! It was beautiful and delicious served with vanilla bean ice cream. The sauce alone is fantastic drizzled over the vanilla ice cream as well (that was our dessert the next night)! Looks amazing and super complicated but ultimately, a very simple and delicous dessert!
This recipe was very good. I added extra rum, only because I really like rum. This recipe is definitely a keeper.
delicious- made this without the rum. just served with sauce. was great by itself and am sure would be the same with icecream or cake.
This was a lot of fun. Easy and fast to make. The sauce was really good. We saved the extra and used it on toast the next morning.
I made this tonight for the family. Home run on all fronts. Presentation was wonderful. I served this over vanilla ice cream after the flame went out. I will be adding this one to our favorite desserts list.
wow, this was excellent! my guests really enjoyed it. I’ve made it twice now. first time i served it with vanilla icecream and shortbread/buscuits because i thought the dessert needed something. But the second time we just ate it with ice cream. I will definetly be making this again. Even though i don’t like pears too much this was very good.
I will make this again! The pears tasted incredible and I want some more… Curse my family for eating it all!
Really good and great presentation! Everyone loved the flames! I served it w/ the option of ice cream or table cream. The table cream was actually my favorite! I will definitely make this again!
REALLY IMPRESSIVE! Use a fancy baking dish and turn down the lights when you set this to flame. After the alcohol burns off, serve hot over ice cream. Very comforting.
We had poached pears in a restaurant in New Orleans and thought it was outstanding. But that was before I made this recipe, which was even better. The flambe was really impressive. Will definitely make this again and would even make it for a fancy dinner party when we want to impress our guests.
very nice recipe… although I had some home made apricot jam, i love it way too much to use it in a sauce for a new recipe, so i used some gooseberry jam. it was really tasty, and worked very well. the pears i was using were not very ripe, so it took a really long time to get them tender, maybe 10-15 minutes. anyhow, great recipe!