Poached Pears in a Honey, Ginger and Cinnamon Syrup

I've received a lot of really yummy recipes from the site A Bullseye View lately I thought today would be a great day to share them since it's What's Cookin' Wednesday! Be sure to check back throughout the day to see the recipes I'm going to share.

This first one is a recipe from one of my favorites, Giada De Laurentiis, it's Poached Pears in a Honey, Ginger and Cinnamon Syrup. Since pears are in season right now (love!) this is a perfect dessert you can make! This recipe makes six sweet servings.

*Photo courtesy of A Bullseye View*

What You’ll Need

2 cups simple syrup, recipe follows
1 (750) ml bottle Moscato wine or other sweet dessert wine
2 cinnamon sticks
2 tablespoons honey
1 ( ¾ inch) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
6 small, firm, ripe Anjou or Bosc pears, peeled and cored
Vanilla ice cream or gelato

For the syrup
1 ½ cups sugar
1 ½ cups water

What You’ll Do

STEP 1: In a saucepan large enough to hold all the pears, combine the wine, simple syrup, cinnamon sticks, honey and ginger. Scrape in the seeds from the vanilla bean and add the bean to the saucepan.

STEP 2: Bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until the honey has melted. Add the pears and simmer over medium-low heat for fifteen to twenty minutes, turning occasionally, until the pears are tender.

STEP 3: Remove the pears from the liquid and allow to cool. Continue to simmer the liquid until it thickens and is reduced by half, about fifteen to twenty minutes. Cool to room temperature. Remove the cinnamon sticks and vanilla bean and discard, or keep to garnish!

STEP 4: Place each pear on a small serving plate with a hefty scoop of vanilla ice
cream.

STEP 5: Drizzle on the syrup, serve immediately and devour!

For step by step photos, be sure to check out A Bullseye View and then check out Life as We Know It to see all of the other recipes featured for What's Cookin' Wednesday!

Vanilla Bean Fig Cupcakes with Orange Blossom Honey Cream Cheese Frosting

Is that not the longest name for a dessert? Totally worth it though. I have a "Greek" themed dinner tonight so I wanted to make a dessert with figs (especially since fig season is upon us). I found this yummy recipe on the blog Dessert First. Now, let me warn you, hers looks so much nicer than mine, but I gave it a try. There's three separate recipes for this one, so buckle up kiddos.

Let's start with the Vanilla Bean Cupcake

You will need (for 12 cupcakes):

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg plus 2 egg whites
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste*

*Let's digress here a moment, this vanilla bean paste has been the bane of my existence the past few days. Apparently it's like some secret treasure or something because you cannot find it just anywhere. None of the grocery stores had it, so I called Whole Foods, no dice. I found it online, but uh yeah I couldn't wait to have it shipped (will be ordering some though). I also found it at Williams Sonoma, drove out there and found out they were sold out. How are you sold out of this?! Is it that popular? Do you not reorder things when the supply gets low???? THEN I was going to make my own but do you know how expensive vanilla beans are?! Try $9.99 for 2, as in two, I needed 4. Needless to say I subbed out vanilla extract for the paste (teaspoon for teaspoon), but I cannot wait to try with the paste!*

What to do:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Line muffin tin with cupcake liners
• Sift flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl and set aside
• Beat butter and sugar in a stand mixer on medium speed until very light and fluffy (3-4 minutes)
• Add in the egg and beat to combine
• Add in the egg whites, one at a time, and beat to combine
• Combine the milk and vanilla bean paste in a cup
• Add flour mixture and milk mixture to the batter in alternating additions, starting and ending with flour
• Once the last bit of flour has been added beat just to combine, do not overbeat
• Divide batter among the muffin tins
• Bake for 15-20 minutes until the tops are lightly golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean
• Let cool on a wire rack

Now while the cupcakes were baking I made the Fig and Brown Sugar Filling

Here's what you need:

• 1 cup (about 8) fresh figs, washed and cut into small pieces
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

What to do:

• Combine all the ingredients in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally for 15-20 minutes, until the mixture thickens
• The figs should turn soft and mushy; mash them with a spoon.
• Remove from heat and let cool
• If you don't like the little pieces of fig skin, process the mixture in a food processor (I did)

After everything was cool enough to work with I made the Orange Blossom Honey Cream Cheese Frosting

Here's what you need:

• 8 ounces cream cheese
• 2 ounces (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature
• 3/4-1 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted
• 1/4 cup orange blossom honey (this stuff smells amazing by the way)

What to do:

• Beat the cream cheese and butter in a stand mixer until just combined (do not overbeat)
• Add in the sugar and honey and beat until combined
• If it looks too runny add more confectioner's sugar (make sure you taste though so it's not too sweet)

Ok, now that you have everything made you need to assemble these yummy little cupcakes. There were no directions on her site on how to do this, so I played this one by ear.

Here's what I did:

• I took a small paring knife and cut a circle in the top of the cupcakes I was filling
• I used a baby spoon and spooned some of the fig filling into the opening
• I then cut off everything but the very top of what I cut out of the cupcake (does that make sense?) and placed it over the filling
• I then frosted the cupcakes (you can't pipe these since it's cream cheese)
• For the ones I filled I added a little more fig filling to the top

In the words of my sister, these are figgin' delicious and will be made often in this house during fig season. Head over to Dessert First to check out her cupcakes, they look better than mine for sure and you can see one that is filled and cut in half. Plus, she has a million delicious desserts on there!

Enjoy!