Pear, cinnamon biscuit, caramel and vanilla ice cream

Ingredients

• 135g of butter
• 75g of icing sugar
• 75g of egg
• 4g of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 vanilla pod, seeds scraped
• 1 pinch of salt
• 300g of flour
• 150g of sugar
• 300ml of cream
• 145g of butter
• 1 vanilla pod
• 4 Comice pears
• 1l water
• 300g of sugar
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 vanilla pod, seeds and pod
• 60g of lime juice
• 350ml of milk
• 350ml of cream
• 6 vanilla pods, seeds and pod
• 75ml of rum
• 215g of egg
• 50g of egg yolk
• 150g of sugar

Instructions

1. To make the cinnamon biscuit, melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat and place in a mixing bowl. Add the icing sugar and the eggs and mix to combine
2. Add the remaining ingredients, bring together to make a dough and place in the fridge for 2 hours to firm up
3. Preheat the oven to 175°C/gas mark 4. On a lightly flourly work surface, roll the dough out to a thickness of 1.5cm and transfer to a non-stick baking mat
4. Cook the sheet of dough in the oven for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and cut out into individual rounds with a 5cm pastry cutter. Return the biscuits to the oven for another 10 minutes until golden brown
5. To make the caramel, place the sugar in a heavy-based pan and heat until it reaches 175°C on a sugar thermometer. Whisk in the cream and remove from the heat. Transfer to a bowl and when the mix has cooled to 60°C, whisk in the butter and set aside
6. Clean and peel the pears. Mix together the remaining ingredients for poaching the pears, add to a pan and bring to the boil. Pour the mixture over the pears and set aside in the fridge for 2 hours. After this time, transfer everything to a saucepan and bring to a simmer, then poach the pears for 10-15 minutes until soft. Set aside to cool in the syrup
7. To make the ice cream, add the milk, cream, vanilla and rum to a saucepan, bring to the boil then remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly
8. Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs and sugar until pale and smooth
9. Pour 1/3 of the milk mixture onto the eggs and sugar and whisk to combine. Return to the pan, add the remaining 2/3 of milk mixture and gradually cook until it reaches 83°C
10. Cool the ice cream base in a bowl over an ice bath, then churn in an ice cream machine
11. To plate, place a biscuit on the centre of each plate and pour the caramel around. Place a pear on top of the biscuit and serve with the ice cream on the side