Vanilla Pears and Caramel Sauce

As I mentioned, I used the pears from my Thanksgiving Centerpiece to make Vanilla Pears inspired by this post by Angelina of Dustpan Alley. While I will make these again sticking a little bit closer to what she specifies, this was just a quickie to serve with ice cream that evening.

Vanilla Pears and Caramel Sauce

INGREDIENTS:
3-6 pears, peeled, cored and sliced in 8ths(I used Comice and Red Anjou)
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup heavy cream

VANILLA PEARS DIRECTIONS:
Combine water and sugar in small saucepan and stir over medium-low heat until dissolved
Bring sugar water to simmer
Add vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon, stirring to combine
Add pears, simmer 10-15 minutes until heated through and soft
Remove pears gently with a slotted spoon

CARAMEL SAUCE DIRECTIONS:
Contine to simmer sugar mixture from Vanilla Pears until reduced

Reduce to approx 1 cup and until it takes on a light golden color and falls off the spoon in a steady drizzle (rather than dribbling off) when lifted from the mixture. If you aren't sure about the drizzle, just concentrate on quantity and color.

Remove from heat and quickly whisk in heavy cream
Reduce heat to low and whisk mixture until reduced by about 1/2 cup, depending on how thick you want your caramel. If you like it very drizzly, don't reduce it much at all. I like it fairly thick, spoonable type consistency, so I reduced mine quite a bit. It will thicken as it cools, so keep that in mind as well.