Baked Pears with Lemon Zest and Anise

This recipe literally came to me as I was making it. I had two pears in the kitchen I needed to use and realized I had not had a baked pear in a long time. I don't make dessert very often these days but the thought of a special dessert on a Sunday night seemed like a nice thing to do. Lets see, what to put in them? I was going to look for a recipe and then decided to just through a couple things on the pears and be done with it. I knew that cinnamon was a given, and I needed something sweet, without being too sweet or high in sugar grams, so I used the agave syrup I had on hand. (I'm telling you the more I use that stuff the more I like it.) I had a big bowl of lemons on the table and thought that zest always wakes up a dish or makes it more interesting so I would try some lemon zest. Then I opened the drawer where I keep all my spices and found some anise seed, which I never use, but thought oh what the heck! Lets try something different. The pears came out so good, I was shocked. Sometimes I surprise myself! I will put this recipe in my collection and make it again.

2 whole pears

1 cup apple juice

1 tablespoon organic agave syrup

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Zest of 1/2 lemon

1/4 tsp anise seed

Cut each pear in half, remove seeds and stem ends. You may peel the pears if you like or leave the peel on. I leave it on because I want the vitamins and fiber. Place in a gratin pan, or other ceramic dish. Combine the rest of the ingredients and pour over the pears. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. Every 15 minutes baste the pears with the sauce.

After the pears have finished baking pour the sauce into a small saucepan and reduce on high heat for about 7 minutes. It will get thick and syrupy. While reducing use a spoon to skim off any foam and the anise seed.

Plate the pears and pour the reduced sauce over.

I took this picture of the pear half plated for the blog post. What you don't see is that once I had the photo I put 2 pear halves in a bowl and topped it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. So you can serve this two ways, the pretty small portion when you have company, or the big portion with ice cream when you are alone in front of the TV.