Recipe: Roast winter fruit with port and spiced mascarpone

Roast winter fruit with port and spiced mascarpone. Photo / Babiche Martens

Serves 4 -6

Butter
3 pears
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 vanilla bean
Zest and juice of two oranges
2 Tbs water
3 persimmons
4 tamarillos
1 cup port
4 sticks of rhubarb
1 cup mascarpone
1 tsp ginger, crushed
1/2 tsp cardamom, ground
1/2 tsp cinnamon, ground
1 tsp honey, warmed

1 Preheat oven to 170C. Grease a baking dish with butter. Halve the pears and remove the cores. Put into the dish, hollow side up. Sprinkle with sugar and dot each with 1/2 a teaspoon of butter.

2 Split the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds over the pears. Tuck the bean into the dish. Sprinkle over the orange zest and juice. Add the water. Cover tightly with a lid or use foil and roast for 45 minutes.

3 Peel and halve the persimmons. Peel the tamarillos but keep whole. Add both to the roasting dish with the port. Recover and return to the oven.

4 Cut the rhubarb into 10cm lengths. Increase the oven temperature to 200C. Uncover and add the rhubarb, spooning the juices around. Return to the oven for 15 minutes, uncovered.

5 Serve hot with the spiced mascarpone; stir the mascarpone together with the ginger, spices and honey.