Red Wine Poached Pears & Marscapone Filling

Author’s Note:  This Red Wine Poached Pear recipe is transferred over from an older cooking blog that I use to have at Peggy Under Pressure and has been edited and updated.

This elegant dessert will wow your family or guests because it looks all fancy and ooh-la-la, but it’s totally easy and super tasty.  Who would pass up on that?!  It makes you want to get all dressed up in a nice frilly dress if you’re a girl, and maybe the boys will even feel like wearing a tie!!!

You will need an Instant Pot or any kind of Pressure Cooker for this recipe.

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Red Wine Poaching the Pears

Wine & Pears Ingredients

– 1 Fresh Vanilla Bean (Cut open and scrape out the microscopic beans and add to the wine mixture, throw in the whole stem too afterwards.)
– 2 Bay Leaves
– 2 Cloves or Star Anise
– 2 Cinnamon Sticks
– 1-2 Bottles of Red Wine
– 1-2 Cups of White Sugar
– 6 Bartlett Pears (With skin peeled)
– 1-2 Cups of Water*

There are two parts to this recipe.  The ” wine poaching” of the pears.  And the Marscapone Filling.
Let’s start with the pears first.

Peel the pears first when you’re ready to cook them. Do not peel ahead of time or the pears will turn brown. Keep the stems on if you like.

For the red wine poaching mixture, put all the spices and 1 bottle of the red wine into the main cooking pot of your pressure cooker.  Add 1 cup of the white sugar as well and give everything a good stir.  Place the pears into the mixture. This is the part where you need to check if the pears are fully immersed in the wine mixture?  Or are a bit of the tops peaking out?  If it is peaking out, add more wine and water to the mixture so the pears are fully immersed.

Close the lid to the pressure cooker and turn it counter-clockwise to lock it. Adjust the Pressure Valve to Airtight.  Following the instructions on your Instant Pot or Pressure Cooker, program the cook time to 20-minutes.  

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Sweet Marscapone Cheese Filling

While the pears are going, you can take this time to make the Marscapone Cheese filling.

MARSCAPONE CHEESE INGREDIENTS:
– 16oz. Marscapone Cheese
– 1/2 Cup Whipped Cream
– 1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
– 2 Tsp Ground Cinnamon (Not pictured; forgot it)
Ignore the butter in the picture,  it doesn’t belong there.  I’m not sure how it crawled into the photo, maybe it felt left out.  It actually goes into the wine mixture later.

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl or in a stand mixer.  Mix it well. Then spoon it into a Piping Bag with a star tip for added prettiness.  😛  Refrigerate the mixture for now since you won’t need it just yet.

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Refrigerator the Red Wine & Pears Overnight

When the pears are done cooking in the pressure cooker, the machine will beep and go to Keep Warm. Follow the instructions for your Pressure Cooker to release the pressure and unlock the lid carefully.  
The pears should smell pretty strong like all the wine and spice mixture but don’t worry, the flavor will be mild.  Turn the pressure cooker OFF and remove the main cooking pot with everything in it.  Set it aside to allow it to cool for a while.  Then refrigerate the entire pot of red wine poached pears for 6-12 hours or overnight.

Remove the pot from the refrigerator.  Carefully take out each pear and set aside into a bowl.  Remove and discard the bay leaves, cloves or star anise and vanilla bean stem from the wine mixture.  Ladle out about 3 cups of the wine mixture and set aside. Discard the rest of the wine mixture.
Put the 3-cups of wine you ladled out back into the main cooking pot of the pressure cooker.  Add 2 tbsp of butter.
Set your Instant Pot to brown or heat without the pressure cooking function. Reduce the wine mixture down to about half so it’s thick and syrupy.

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Core and Fill the Pears with Cheese

Using a coring tool, core out the center of each pear carefully.  Just in case you don’t know what a coring tool is, it’s pictured above.  After you’ve cored each pear, place them onto individual serving dishes.
Remove the marscapone cheese mixture from the fridge and start piping it all into the center of each pear.  If you like, you can pipe some extra next to each pear. Garnish with some mint if you want extra fanciness.

Spoon a couple of spoons of the thickened wine mixture over the pears when ready to serve.  Ta da!

The pears are super rich with the wine flavor and the marscapone cheese balances it perfectly.  You can also simply pair it with just whip cream or vanilla ice cream.  The skies the limit.  I super duper {heart} this dessert!!!

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