Gingerbread pudding with red wine pears

Name: Gingerbread pudding with red wine pears
Cook time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 6
Ingredients: 6 rock-hard pears; 350ml red wine; 75g castor sugar

Dan Lepard

May 20, 2014

Gingerbread pud': The secret's in the sauce.William Meppem

Time:1-2 hoursServes:6

Here are some tips for making your saucy fruit puddings better. Getting the fruit mixture hot first helps to avoid the uncooked middle that drags the baking time out and over-colours the top. Also, keep the fruit quite liquid as the cake mixture will absorb moisture from it during baking. Finally, because the fruit gets cooked twice, try to keep some texture at first so it doesn't utterly disintegrate by the end.

Ingredients

For the pears

6 rock-hard pears
350ml red wine
75g castor sugar

For the gingerbread top

100g unsalted butter
100g molasses sugar
1 egg (60g)
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
100g crystallised ginger pieces, chopped
50ml milk
50g rolled oats
150g spelt or wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
extra oats for the top

Method

1. Peel, quarter and core the pears and place them in a saucepan with the wine and sugar. Bring to the boil then leave to simmer for about 40 minutes. The wine will only half cover the fruit, so stir it every 5 to 10 minutes so the pears get evenly cooked. Remove from the heat.
2. Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan-forced. Beat together the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl then beat in the egg and spices. Add the ginger pieces and milk, stir well, then add the oats, flour and baking powder and mix evenly.
3. Bring the pears to the boil again and spoon them into a two-litre ovenproof baking dish. Spoon over the topping, adding a sprinkling of oats, and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the centre of the pudding is cooked through. Serve with thin pouring cream or a rich vanilla custard.