A few months ago my sister and I started planning a dinner party. Planning a dinner party with a very talented and fun sister (like mine) is always a good idea 🙂 We had so much fun planning and then executing our plan. We decided to work in our strengths. The party was at her beautiful & newly renovated house so she did all the cleaning and most of the decor prep. I love cooking so I took care of most of the food.
The Menu:
Appetizer -Charcuterie board
Salad – Wedge salad with Bacon and Blue cheese
Main – Baked Chicken, Roasted Root veggies, Artisan Bread w/Herbed Butter
Dessert – Chai- Poached Pears with Cinnamon Whipped Cream
I originally got the idea for the Chai Poached Pears from Danielle Walker’s Celebrations Cookbook. But I needed it to be simpler so I decided to change the recipe and make a crockpot version with less additional spices. Best decision I ever made!! They were delicious! Dessert was the easiest part of the meal! This recipe serves 6 but I was serving 12 so I doubled it and it worked brilliantly. Note: If you plan to double the recipe, you will need 2-3 crockpots depending on the size to fit 12 pears. It took me two large crockpots and one small one to fit 15 pears. I did a few extra so I could give some to my friend who was babysitting 🙂
CROCKPOT CHAI POACHED PEARS W/ CINNAMON WHIPPED CREAM
Ingredients
- 8 cups water
- 8 TBS chai tea *See Notes
- 1/2 cup raw honey
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/4 cup coconut sugar
- 1 TBS cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- dash salt
- 6 pears peeled but not cored (bosc or bartlett work best)
For the Cinnamon Whipped Cream (see below)
- 1 13.5 oz can coconut milk
- 1 tsp honey
Instructions
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Combine all ingredients except pears in a pot and place on the stove, bring to low simmer, turn off heat and let tea steep for 10 minutes. While tea is steeping, peel pears and place them in the crockpot/s standing up (see picture). After 10 minutes, strain liquid and pour over pears in the crockpot/s covering them 3/4 of the way (they need more liquid than pictured). You should have some liquid left over, save it! Turn crockpot/s on low and cook for 3 hours with the lid on. After two hours, turn the pears on their sides so that they don’t have a poach-line and cook the last hour (if you don’t, they look like they have a farmers tan!)
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Place reserved liquid in a pot and add 1-2 cups liquid from the crockpot/s. This is what you will use to make a chai syrup. NOTE: All you need is a little liquid left in the crockpot so that the pears stay in a warm bath while you have dinner. If you plan to serve right away, you don’t need to leave any liquid, you can use it all for the syrup, just keep the pears in the crockpot with the power off and the lid on until the chai syrup is done.
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To make the chai syrup- Bring liquid to a boil and let reduce, stirring occasionally. This will take a good 30 minutes or more so stay near the stove and keep watch- you don’t want it to burn! When it has reduced down and you begin to see the bottom of the pot as you stir, it is ready! Remove from heat and place in a container, if serving later, or pour over plated pears if serving immediately.
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I use Danielle Walkers Coconut whipped cream recipe but I add 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon when I add the honey. If you don’t need a dairy free version you can make a delicious whipped cream by beating 8 oz (or more if desired) heavy whipping cream in a stand mixer, add 1 tsp honey and 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon at the end when peaks have formed.
Recipe Notes
*Use your favorite loose leaf version, here is mine. You could also use a Rooibos version if you don’t want any caffeine.
I hope you love this delicious fall treat as much as we did at our fabulous dinner party!
