Quick pear pudding

I've been meaning to use my new le creuset cocottes for a while and was planning to make some melt in the middle chocolate puddings tonight. However, that seemed a little bit too much like hard work for a Wednesday evening (I will be making them soon though so watch this space). 

Instead, given pear season is in full flow and I have a fridge full, I made a quick and easy baked pear pudding - it takes about 5 minutes to assemble and 15 minutes to cook and the results make you feel like you've had a proper dessert.

These pears are baked with a sweet green ginger wine (I use Stones), a bit of butter plus sugar and cinnamon and nothing else... simple!

The combination of the cinnamon, sugar and butter creates a gently spiced pear-y caramel. Serve with cream of ice cream (I didn't have any but they were pretty great as they were, just out of the oven.

Recipe follows below...

Serves two:

• 2 ripe pears
• 6 small cubes of butter (about 1cm) 
• 2 tablespoons of unrefined golden granulated sugar (I prefer it to refined white cane sugar)
• 1 table spoon green ginger wine (optional)
• Half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon 

Cut the bottom off both pears (this helps them to stand up in the dish) and peel, leaving the stalk for decoration.  Place the pears in individual dishes (you can use ramekins or any oven proof dish if you don't have cocottes) and pour over the ginger wine. 

Sprinkle liberally with the sugar and dot the butter around the base of each pear. Dust with cinnamon and bake at 220C for 15 - 20 minutes, or until the pears are soft (this will vary depending on how big your pears are!)