Fresh bay leaves add a heavenly flavour and scent to this lovely dish. They make a really pretty dessert – perfect with a coconut or conventional rice pudding. Cut them using the chopstick trick outlined in the hasselback coquina squash recipe, but leave in the cores, or they will collapse during the cooking process they’re easy enough to remove later.
Ingredients
- 3 ripe, but firm pears
- 3 crunchy eating apples
- ⅓ cup (100 ml) plus 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 orange juice
- about 15–20 fresh bay leaves
- extra maple syrup, to serve (optional)
How to Make It
- Preheat the oven to 180˚C (350˚F) Gas 4. Peel the pears and apples, and cut them in half. Cut them into thin slices, without going all the way through using the method for hasselback coquina squash given.
- Stir the maple syrup, ground cinnamon and orange juice together and brush this over the fruit, making sure to get lots of the mixture in between the slices. Cut the bay leaves in half along their length from stalk to tip and gently push them in between some of the slices in the fruit. Cook for 25 minutes, basting halfway through, and then pouring over any leftover glaze 5 minutes before the end of the cooking time.
- Drizzle with extra maple syrup to serve, if desired.