English pear and thyme Trifle

 Feeds – 4-6

Ingredients –

madeleines – crumbled

Poached vanilla and thyme pears ingredients

4 pears – peeled

600ml water

200g caster sugar

1 vanilla pod – scraped or 1tbsp vanilla bean paste

5 sprigs of thyme

juice of ½ lemon

parchment to keep pears submerged

Thyme Custard ingredients –

75g caster sugar

2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

3 eggs yolks (keep the whites)
350g mascarpone

Swiss Meringue topping –

4 egg whites

150g caster sugar

chef’s torch

Instructions –

Poached pears

Begin by peeling your pears and placing in a saucepan with the water, sugar, vanilla, thyme and lemon juice. Cover with parchment and bring to the boil. Once boiling reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until soft (around 8-10 minutes depending on how ripe your pears are). Once cooked allow to cool a little in the syrup then remove the pears and place the syrup over a high heat to reduce and thicken slightly. You’ll use this to drizzle over your sponge and pears when making up your trifle.

Thyme custard –

Begin by muddling the thyme and sugar together (set aside one tsp of this to garnish your trifle with) you can muddle in a pestle and mortar or blitz together.

Next whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until pale and voluminous then whisk in the mascarpone, a little at a time until smooth and well combined.

Whisk four egg whites until they begin to hold their shape, spoon in two generous dollops of the egg whites to the thyme custard and gently combine. Set to one side.

Swiss meringue –

Take the remaining whisked egg whites and add in another egg white then whisk until combined and add in the caster sugar. Ensuring that your bowl is heatproof, place over your pan of boiling poaching liquor that the pears were in. Whisk for about 5-7 minutes or until they reach about 70 degrees Celsius/ 160F- the egg whites should be glossy and smooth with no grain from the sugar left. You can test by rubbing the meringue between your fingers.

Next using a electric whisk, whisk the meringue for a further five minutes then either use a spoon to serve or place in a piping bag.

Construct your trifle by using either a champagne coupe glass or make one large trifle.

Crumble the madeleines into the bottom of the glass, dice your poached pears and cover the sponge with a generous layer of pear. Drizzle over 3-4 tablespoons of poaching liquor then spoon over the thyme custard and finish with a generous helping of Swiss meringue. Carefully use your chef’s torch to turn the meringue golden. This takes seconds! Then finish with a small sprinkle of thyme sugar. Serve immediately or refrigerate and serve.