Spiced Poached Pears with Chocolate Ganache

After watching Alana make her beautiful Spiced Poached Pears with Orange Creme Anglaise, Chocolate Ganache & Sugared macadamia crumb, I was inspired to give it a try with the ingredient I had.
I made the poached pears with a orange ganache.
I will copy and paste Alana's recipe into the blog for easy reference. The things I did different will be added in brackets. I also kept the syrup and used it again a few nights later and tasted fine! Enjoy!





Ingredients
Poached pears
600ml red wine
200ml water
1½ cups castor sugar
2 cinnamon quills (used cinnamon powder instead)
2 star anise (Didn't have any - but usually these would add a real spice to the flavour)
3 strips orange peel (Used 1cup of orange juice instead)
2 pears, peeled and halved (used 4pears)
2 vanilla beans, seeds scraped


Chocolate ganache
250g dark chocolate, chopped
125g unsalted butter, chopped
(I also added 1/4teaspoon of orange essence)

Creme anglaise
400ml cream
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
Zest of 1 orange
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons castor sugar
2 tablespoons grand marnier

Sugared macadamia crumb
200g macadamias
2 tablespoons castor sugar

Method 

Preparation and cooking time: 30-40 minutes
Serves: 2

1. Preheat oven to 200⁰C.

2. For poached pears, combine all ingredients in a small saucepan, bring to the boil, reduce heat to low and cover, simmering pears gently for 15-20 minutes or until just tender. Set aside in poaching liquid.

3. For chocolate ganache, heat chocolate and butter over a double boiler until just melted, stirring frequently. Remove mixture from heat and set aside.

4. For crème anglaise, heat cream, vanilla and zest in a small saucepan until nearly boiling. Remove from heat. Whisk yolks, sugar and grand marnier in a bowl until creamy. Slowly pour in hot cream mixture a little at a time until incorporated. Return to a clean saucepan and cook, stirring, over low heat until thickened and coats the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from heat and sieve into a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside until required.

5. For sugared macadamia crumb, spread macadamias and sugar evenly over a greased baking tray and bake until golden. Cool, place in a food processor and process until it forms fine crumbs.

6. Strain pears from syrup and set aside. Pour syrup into a frying pan and reduce until thick. Add pears and coat in syrup.

7. To serve, pipe chocolate ganache onto plate. Arrange pears so that one pear half is standing up and one piece is lying down. Spoon syrup over the pears and sprinkle with some macadamia crumbs. Serve anglaise in a jug on the side.

You could serve with Ice Cream like I did! Yum Yum!

Recipe from: Masterchef website: http://www.masterchef.com.au/spiced-poached-pears-with-orange-creme-anglaise-chocolate-ganache-and-sugared-macadamia-crumble.htm