To put you in a good mood, try this poached pears recipe with chocolate sauce on cocoa-rippled meringues…

Although still gorgeously decadent, the amount of cream usually used on pavlovas and in ganache-style chocolate sauce
is dramatically reduced in this dessert.

What You Need

4 meringues (for the recipe, see here)
For the poached pears:
1 litre water
¾ cup sugar
1 cinnamon quill
1 vanilla bean, split
4 pears
Juice of one lemon
For the chocolate sauce:
½ cup reduced pear syrup
100g 70% cocoa chocolate, broken into pieces
For the yoghurt cream filling:
¼ cup cream
¼ cup Greek-style yoghurt

Method

1/ Add the water, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla to a large, heavy-based pot.
2/ Bring to the boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Have a piece of greaseproof
paper at the ready and the lemon juice in a bowl.
3/ As soon as a pear is peeled, dip it in the lemon juice so it doesn’t discolour, submerge in the poaching liquid and cover the surface with greaseproof paper. Repeat until all the pears are added. Press the greaseproof paper over the surface of the pears and the liquid so no air comes into contact with them.
4/ Simmer for 35 minutes or until just tender. Remove and reduce the poaching liquid by half. (To store the pears, submerge in this syrup and refrigerate.)
5/ For the chocolate sauce, bring half a cup of the reduced syrup to a simmer, remove from the heat and whisk in the chocolate until smooth and well combined. In a separate bowl, whip the cream until soft peaks form and fold in the yoghurt.
6/ To assemble, top a meringue with two tablespoons of the yoghurt cream and place a pear on top. Serve immediately with a jug of hot chocolate sauce for pouring over.
Serves 4. Per 347g serving: 2 215kJ, 16g fat (9g sat), 340mg sodium, 110g carbs, 9g fibre, 93g sugars, 6g protein