Makes: 24
Preparation: 25 minutes
Cooking: 25 minutes

Ingredients

● Generous pinch of saffron
● 100g caster sugar
● One vanilla pod
● 6 large conference pears
● 250g caramelised biscuits, such as Lotus
● 500g cream cheese
● Vanilla essence
● 50g icing sugar
● Approximately 24 mini cups or shot glasses

Method

● Soak the saffron in a few spoons of warm water for 30 minutes.

● Put the caster sugar in a large pan with 100ml of water and scrape in the seeds from the vanilla pod.

● Peel, halve and core the pears. Then put them in the water with the saffron and the vanilla pod.

● Bring the water to the boil for five minutes then reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes until the pear is tender.

● Cool the pears in the syrup then cut them into tiny pieces

● Crush the biscuits roughly.

● Beat the cream cheese with the icing sugar and a few drops of vanilla extract and put it in a piping bag.

● To assemble, put some cream cheese in each mini cup or shot glass, top with a sprinkling of biscuit, then pears. Repeat until nearly full.

● Finish with pears and crumbled biscuits.