Poires Belle Hélène
A dessert attributed to Auguste Escoffier, named after Offenbach's operetta La Belle Hélène (1864), a Paris brasserie classic. Three elements: a pear poached in vanilla syrup, vanilla ice cream and hot chocolate sauce. The whole effect is a contrast of temperature — cold pear, hot sauce. So the sauce is made at the last moment, the pears the day before.
Your own work in that: 5 min.
- Poaching the pears 25 min
- Cooling in syrup 180 min
- Chocolate sauce 10 min
- Serving 5 min
Step by step
0 / 8 donePeel the pears, keeping the stalk
Peel the pears with a peeler, in strips from top to bottom, leaving the stalk. Scoop the core from the base with a teaspoon and level the base so the pear stands. Drop them into lemon water at once, as they brown.
Ingredients: 4 pcs pears · 1000 ml water · 250 g sugar · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 1 pcs lemon
Top-to-bottom strips, stalk left — core from beneath.Boil a vanilla syrup
Boil the water with the sugar, split vanilla, lemon juice and peel. The syrup should be sweet enough to keep the pears whole — in a weak syrup the flesh breaks down faster, in a strong one it stays firm.
Ingredients: 4 pcs pears · 1000 ml water · 250 g sugar · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 1 pcs lemon
Poach the pears under paper
Lower the pears into the syrup, cover with a circle of baking paper touching the surface and poach 15–20 minutes over low heat, until a knife slides in easily. The paper keeps the pears submerged and cooking evenly.
Ingredients: 4 pcs pears · 1000 ml water · 250 g sugar · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 1 pcs lemon
A paper circle on the surface — the pears cook evenly.Cool the pears in their syrup
Take off the heat and leave the pears in the syrup until completely cold, ideally overnight in the fridge. Cooled in syrup they take up the vanilla and turn translucent; lifted out at once they dry out.
Ingredients: 4 pcs pears · 1000 ml water · 250 g sugar · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 1 pcs lemon
Make the sauce just before serving
Chop the chocolate. Bring the cream to a boil and pour it over the chocolate, wait a minute and stir from the centre, until smooth and glossy. Stir in the butter for shine. The sauce must be hot.
Ingredients: 150 g dark chocolate · 150 ml whipping cream (30%) · 15 g butter
A minute's patience, stirred from the centre — it shines.Drain the pears
Lift the pears out of the syrup and pat them lightly dry. Syrup running onto the plate thins the chocolate sauce and melts the ice cream. Keep the syrup — good for cocktails and fruit salads.
Ingredients: 4 pcs pears · 1000 ml water · 250 g sugar · 1 pcs vanilla pod · 1 pcs lemon
Set out the pear and ice cream
Stand a pear in a chilled coupe or on a plate beside a scoop of vanilla ice cream. A chilled dish delays the ice cream melting when it meets the hot sauce.
Ingredients: 4 pcs vanilla ice cream · 30 g flaked almonds
Pour over the hot sauce at the table
Pour the hot chocolate sauce over the pear at the table, so it runs down it and over the ice cream, scatter with almonds and serve at once. The contrast of hot and cold lasts only a minute — that is the whole dessert.
Ingredients: 4 pcs vanilla ice cream · 30 g flaked almonds
Before you start
Firm pears, not ripe
Choose firm, slightly underripe pears for poaching — Conference or Williams. Ripe ones fall apart in the syrup within five minutes. The pear must keep its shape, as it stands whole on the plate.
Do not overheat the chocolate
Chocolate boiled with cream turns grainy and loses its gloss. Always pour hot cream over chopped chocolate off the heat. If the sauce thickens, rewarm it over a water bath, not a burner.
Pears ahead
Pears in syrup keep a week in the fridge in a jar and grow more vanilla-scented daily. The chocolate sauce keeps three days chilled; rewarm over a water bath before serving.
