Pear crumble with dark chocolate - recipes

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The following dish was voted by the public as the winning recipe for week 5 of the Freshly Blogged competition. Pear crumble with dark chocolate and Amarula custard By Barry Gerber (www.capecook.co.za) Inspiration behind this recipe I knew it had to come, ingredients that are predominantly sweet, something that shouts dessert, ingredients that I normally don't cook with. Do I need to say it? I am not a dessert person.

Starters, mains and then cheese for me, no dessert thank you. But Amarula cream, pears, almonds, dark chocolate and cream crackers do not really give you too many options outside of dessert. I knew exactly what one element was going to be though, well I thought so in any case, but it didn't work out. In the end I decided on a pear crumble with a dark chocolate cap and Amarula custard.

Ingredients

For the Amarula custard:

500ml Amarula cream

5 egg yolks

150g sugar

For the pears:

2 litres water

1 cup sugar

4 pears, peeled

For the crumble:

1 packet PnP cream crackers

1 packet PnP blanched almonds

1 cup unrefined brown sugar

200g unsalted butter, room temperature

For the chocolate cap:

80g dark chocolate

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

Method

Amarula custard:

Heat the Amarula cream slowly until it starts to bubble, remove from the heat immediately.In a stainless steel bowl whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until creamy. Slowly add the warm Amarula to the egg mixture, whisking continuously, make sure the eggs do not start to cook.

Heat the mixture up over a boiling pot of water and whisk continuously, until it coats the back of a spoon. Let it cool down and refrigerate.

Pears:

In a large enough pot to hold the pears heat the water and the sugar to boiling point, add the pears and cook for 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat and cool down. Cut the pears in cubes.

Crumble:

Add the cream crackers, almonds and brown sugar in a food processor and blend until the crackers and almonds are finely chopped. In a mixing bowl add the butter and crumbs together and mix together into a crumble. In individual greased ramekins pack pear cubes to fill 2/3 of the ramekins. Pack crumbs on top of pears and bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it cool down.

Chocolate cap:

Melt butter and chocolate together and mix well.

To assemble:

Loosen the pear and crumble slightly with a knife.

Turn over on a plate, add some of the chocolate on top and dish the custard around the pear.

About Barry Gerber (http://www.capecook.co.za/)

I'm 45 years old and from Bellville, Cape Town. I grew up in Malmesbury, and still love the Swartland and West Coast very much. The people are like my cooking: honest, without pretence.

I didn't grow up watching my mother cook. I played outside like most boys. But when I left home at 18 I started cooking for myself and friends - sometimes with success; sometimes with disastrous results! My love for cooking stems from my love for making people happy. My cooking style is rustic, with influences from boerekos and the country-style cooking of France and Italy, with occasional attempts of fanciness.

About the competition

Competition organisers are Pick n Pay and Fresh Living, SA's top-selling food magazine, and sponsors are Knorr and Spekko.

The competition runs from July 8 to September 26, and will see 40 food bloggers from across South Africa compete in a series of weekly food challenges for the coveted Top Blogger title.

Each Friday, participating bloggers will receive a food challenge with a list of specified ingredients. Bloggers will receive a smart shopper loyalty card, pre-loaded with points, to purchase their listed items at Pick n Pay for the week.

Contestants will have five days to experiment with the ingredients to create a recipe, make the dish, photograph it, and write about their inspiration. This will be uploaded to their individual profiles for judging on www.freshlyblogged.co.za

Fresh Living editor Justine Drake, food editor Anke Roux and Pick n Pay's Food developer Yvonne Short will determine which bloggers make it through to the next challenge each week, until the final three remain.

Public voting will determine which recipe is the favourite each week with fabulous prizes up for grabs. The final three contestants will compete in a live cook off at the Pick n Pay Taste of Joburg on 26 September 2013, to determine who will be crowned the Top Blogger.

The overall competition winner will receive a three part recipe series in Fresh Living magazine, two SAA return tickets to a European destination of choice, an iPad and more.