Poire Belle Hélène

Auguste Escoffier created this dessert in 1864 and named it after Jacques Offenbachs operetta.

The famous Poire Belle Hélène, a delicate dessert with poached pears, a dark chocolate sauce and Vanille ice cream (if you don’t have an ice machine, it is perfectly ok to buy some vanilla ice cream).

Poached Pears
with Chocolate Sauce and Vanilla Ice cream

Serves 2

ingredients

2 Pears, not too soft
2 Glasses (about 300ml) of white Wine

3 Tbsp sugar
1 cinnamon stick

100g high quality dark chocolate
200 ml cream
a pinch of salt

steps

Peel the pears. Peel off some of the bottom, so they can stand without falling over.

In a saucepan, heat the white wine, sugar and cinnamon stick. Bring to boil. Place the pears in the wine and let them simmer with the lid on, until the wine is almost totally reduced and the remaining liquid is thickened. This will take about 10- 15 Minutes.

In the meantime, chop your chocolate. In a small pot, bring your cream to a boil. take it off the heat and add the chocolate. Let it rest for some minutes, then stir it until you get a nice and smooth chocolate sauce. Add a pinch of salt if you like.

Remove the Pears from the pot and let them cool slightly.

To serve them, place one pear on a plate, add a scoop of Vanilla Ice cream and drizzle over some of the chocolate sauce.