Alle's Apple & Honey Roasted Pear and Pevensey Blue Mille Feuille

To celebrate the launch of our Melting Selection, we asked our colleagues how they like to cook with cheese at home and we received this hearty, comforting dish from Alle who works on our Cheese Maturation team.

I wanted to try a sweet dish using Pevensey Blue as we’ve recently started selling Soft & Swirly’s Pevensey ice cream in our Islington shop. It took quite a while to come up with the recipe but I knew that the flavours of pear and honey go well with blue cheese, so took it from there. Mille Feuille is a real showstopper dessert so I would serve this at dinner parties where I have lots of time to prepare, and want to impress my guests!

INGREDIENTS (to serve 8)

320g puff pastry

5 slightly under ripe pears, 4 sliced and 1 cubed

300g apple juice

50g honey

½ cinnamon stick

75g Pevensey Blue, room temperature

150ml double cream

1-2 tbsp icing sugar, to taste

METHOD

First, prepare the pastry. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Lightly flour your work surface and rolling pin.

Roll the pastry out into a 3mm thick rectangle the size of your baking tray. Put onto the tray, cover with another sheet of greaseproof paper, and top with another baking tray. You might need to do this in two batches or using two baking trays, depending on what you have available.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the pastry is golden and cooked through.

Remove the top baking tray and leave to cool.

Once cool, trim the edges so you have a neat rectangle, then divide this into smaller rectangles, ideally around the same length as your pear slices. You should have 4 small rectangles per Mille Feuille.

While the pastry is cooking, prepare your pears. Put the apple juice, honey and cinnamon stick in a pan and bring to the boil.

Lay the pear slices in a roasting tin and pour the liquid over the top. Cover with tin foil and bake for 10-12 minutes, until the pears are tender.

Set the pear slices to one side, put the liquid back into the pan and add the cubed pears. Cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring gently so the pears don’t fall apart.

Set the cubed pears aside, bring the liquid back up to the boil and reduce until syrupy.

To make the cream, whisk the Pevensey Blue until creamy, add the double cream and icing sugar and whisk until the mix forms soft peaks. Keep in the fridge until needed.

Set aside one pastry rectangle per mille feuille.

Spoon or pipe a layer of Pevensey cream on each of the remaining rectangles. Add a drizzle of the poaching syrup and top with the pear slices.

Make a stack of three rectangles per mille feuille and top with the final rectangle.

Decorate the mille feuille with a spoonful of Pevensey cream, the cubed pears and drizzled pear syrup. Dust with icing sugar and serve.