Ingredients

Pear puree

• 800g pears, peeled and decored
• 500ml boiling water
• 500g caster sugar
• 1 egg white
• 1 vanilla pod
• 1 cinnamon stick

Method

1. Pear Puree: Place the boiling water and caster sugar in a saucepan and stir them together until the sugar has dissolved. Add the vanilla pod, cinnamon stick and pears to the syrup and place the saucepan over a moderate heat. Bring the syrup to a simmer and reduce the temperature slightly. Place the pears in the syrup and leave to cook gently for 10 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat, remove the pears from the syrup with a slotted spoon and leave to cool. Roughly dice the pears and place them in a food processor or blender and puree them with 500ml of the cooking syrup. Set the puree aside until well cooled.
2. Sorbet: Place the puree in an ice cream machine with the egg white and allow it to churn until the mixture becomes firm. Place the sorbet in a well sealed freezer proof container and freeze until ready to serve. If you don't have an ice cream machine simply If you don't have an ice-cream machine place it in a freezer proof sealed container and place it in the freezer for 1 hour then remove it and stir, then return to the freezer and take it out and stir it every 30 minutes for 2 hours then freeze it until ready to serve.
3. To Serve: Remove the sorbet from the freezer 15 minutes before serving. Serve the sorbet in bowls on its own or with poached pears garnished with mint leaves (optional).

* Blackberry Sorbet: Make a sugar syrup by simmering 500g of sugar with 500ml of water until the sugar has dissolved. Puree 800g of blackberries and strain them to remove the seeds (optional). Place 600ml of the sugar syrup and the blackberry puree and prepare as above.