Pecan toffee meringue with mulled pears

Pecan toffee meringue with mulled pears

3.5

(4 ratings)

By

Cooking time

Prep: 30 mins Cook: 1 hr, 10 mins

Skill level

Easy

Servings

Serves 8 - 10

A great dinner party centre piece you can make ahead

Nutrition and extra info

Additional info

  • Freezable
Nutrition info

Nutrition per serving

kcalories
390
protein
9g
carbs
51g
fat
14g
saturates
5g
fibre
2g
sugar
50g
salt
0.26g
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Ingredients

For the mulled pears

  • 600ml mulled wine, ready made from a bottle
  • 6 small, ripe, shapely pears, peeled, quartered and cored
  • 50g golden caster sugar

For the pecan and meringue filling

  • 225g golden caster sugar
  • 1½ tsp cornflour
  • 4 large egg whites
  • 1½ tsp wine vinegar
  • 50g pecans, roughly chopped
  • 500g tub Greek yogurt
  • 4 tbsp dulce de leche (we used Merchant Gourmet)
  • extra toasted pecans (optional)

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  • Tip

    To serve

    Take the pears from the juice, then simmer the juice until it’s syrupy and glossy. Return the pears and cool. Stir the yogurt with the Dulche de leche. To serve, pile the filling in the meringue and arrange pears on top. Scatter with nuts, if using. Hand round the syrup for guests to spoon a little over.

  • Tip

    To freeze

    Cool, then carefully pack into a large, rigid container. Pack the pears in a container or food bag. Freeze for 6 weeks.

Method

  1. Put the wine, pears and sugar in a pan and simmer for 10 mins.
  2. Heat oven to 160C/140C/gas 3. Draw a 25cm circle on a sheet of baking parchment, then put on a baking sheet. Stir 225g sugar and cornflour together in a jug. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then whisk in the sugar mixture, a tbsp at a time, until thick and glossy.
  3. Fold in vinegar and half the nuts, then pile mixture onto the circle, building up the edges to make a ‘nest’. Scatter with rest of pecans then put in oven, turning the temperature down to 150C/fan 130C/gas 2. Bake for 1 hr, then turn oven off and cool inside for 1 hr.

Recipe from Good Food magazine, November 2006

BBC GoodFood Magazine

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Comments

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vivaves's picture
vivaves07:02, 11th Nov, 2011
3

I like the meringue and mulled pears combination - the greek yoghurt is a little on the tart side and cream would have probably been loads better, but if you're trying to watch your fat intake, yoghurt is fine (I used 0% greek yoghurt). I halved the recipe as I didn't have that many people to feed, and it worked well. The syrup made things far too sweet so I saved it to serve with stewed fruit - it was certainly not needed with the sweet meringue.

vernumt's picture
vernumt01:26, 17th Nov, 2009
4

A really great dessert but assemble and eat straight away otherwise it collapses under the weight!!!

superscrumptious's picture
superscrumptious12:02, 5th Oct, 2009
5

I had eaten a similar dish in a local restaurant and thought it was amazing so was delighted to find your recipe. I didn't have mulled wine, so just used a spiced-up red wine to poach the pears.

I made it in a rectangular dish to match the restaurant's -great. It also freezes really well.
Am I allowed to say the local Restauarant, which is really good is Delivino in Crieff!

jennymcbride's picture
jennymcbride11:38, 30th Dec, 2007

I am astonished as the low rating for this amazing dessert! It has become a family classic inour house!

lizziesfolder's picture
lizziesfolder10:17, 12th Dec, 2007
2

Disappointing. The greek yoghurt was too tart, I think next time I would use cream. The mulled pears, sounded great, but weren't as flavoursome as I had hoped. Meringue was excellent.

Dessert looked fantastic, but the combination of flavours let it down.

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