I decided to make this with both pears and apples, since I didn’t really know which kind of fruit I’d prefer. This is another easy recipe, with a flavorful simple syrup used for poaching the fruit (similar to the peach melba of a few weeks ago), this time sweetened largely with honey.
Here, the syrup is flavored with orange and lemon peel, cinnamon and star anise. These ingredients are simmered together for several minutes to really flavor the syrup prior to poaching.
The fruit is peeled and cored. I thought that I still had a pear corer that I’d inherited from my childhood when we had a huge pear tree and spent several weeks during the summer canning all manner of pear recipes. I ended up using a melon-baller to create that nice round center instead. I started all of the fruits simmering at once, but found that the apples took much (much) longer to cook.
Once the fruit was tender, it was removed and the syrup boiled to reduce it to a nice syrupy consistency, which could then be poured over the top, and allowed to cool.
I served this as suggested with a bit of Greek yogurt on the side. The creamy-tangy flavor of the yogurt complimented the sweet fruit.
I have to say that this was tasty, but I definitely preferred the pears to the apples. And it’s probably just me, but I think I would have preferred a different combination – like switching out the star anise for cloves, or something like that. The honey was an interesting flavor element. This was yummy and provided a nice “sweet” over the course of a few days. I’m not sure how often I’d make it, but it was fun to try.
dulceshome 
I preferred the pears also, both in flavor and consistency. It looks good! Happy weekend
A lot of folks have been saying that they prefer the pears. My parents have well-laden pear trees this year and I’m going to have to go over and help them deal with all the fruit soon. i think I’ll be poaching some of them.
I think this is better suited to pears, but i certainly would never begrudge an apple prepared this way sitting on my plate 🙂
I had a feeling apples would take longer, so I went with the pears. Maybe I’ll try the apples this weekend since I’ll have more time.
Seems to be the consensus that pears was the way to go but how could you go bad with apples really. I actually found my pear corer AFTER I made these so I’ll be making them again this weekend. Not for the corer but I was going to make them anyway, they were that good!
Candy, poached pears and Greek yogurt sounds like a delicious combination – and your presentation is very lovely. I went with the pears and I will continue to do so – cloves are part of a lot of poached fruit recipes that I found, so your idea of switching star anise for cloves has a lot of followers already!
Have a good weekend!
sounds like pears and yogurt were the favorites this week
I used apples & nectarines & plots but added the stone fruits later & simmered only a very short time. It would be scrumptious with the yogurt- your rendition looks scrumptious.
Melon baller….genius !!!! The toughest part of the recipe for me was skinning the pears and when I tried to core them I thought they did not look too hot. Next time I will use the melon baller for sure. I also want to try some Greek yogurt- the ice cream was great but something with a bit more tang would be interesting. Great job and nice process photos~