Parfaits With Pear and Honey Compote

A parfait is the perfect summer breakfast. It’s light and cool—plus it’s a great way to enjoy all the summer produce. Pears are just coming into season but I had a can of pear halves and just thought pears and honey sounded like a classy and tasty combo. And it was. If you don’t have pears, you can easily adapt this recipe to use almost any other fruit you want. Peaches, nectarines, plums, berries, figs and bananas come to mind!

Ingredients

Pear and honey compote

• Canned pear halves: you can also use fresh pears. The typical standard-sized can of pears usually has two pears, so if using fresh, pick up two!
• Honey: any kind you like should be fine.
• Vanilla and ground ginger: these are optional but recommended.

As mentioned above, I’m using pears but you can sub in almost any fruit you like to make the compote. Another note – I also like to use unsweetened plain yogurt, and lately I’ve been going with a dairy-free cashew yogurt by Forager. The pear and honey compote adds sweetness enough for me but if you prefer a sweeter yogurt feel free to use what you like.

Making the compote

To make the pear and honey compote, simply add the honey, pears and a pinch of salt to a saucepan or a pot and heat over medium for about ten minutes. I also added a dash of ground ginger and vanilla, but that is optional. Once the pears have simmered in the honey and the mixture is cooled, you will have a tasty fruit compote to sweeten your yogurt. The mixture would also be delicious on top of waffles, pancakes or french toast.

A word of warning!

Don’t make the compote with any doors open! My kitchen door is right by the stove and opens up to the backyard. Not three minutes of cooking the pears and honey had passed before I had at least 5 bees in my kitchen with more hovering around the back door. It was a terrifying couple of minutes but some how I managed to shoo them out and not get stung by putting on a hoodie and using my ipad as a shield. Lesson learned.

Granola for topping

I LOVE my granola recipe. For these parfaits, I left out the dark chocolate and apricots in my original recipe but you don’t have to. If you’re up for making your own (it’s very easy), I highly recommend it, but you can also go with your favorite store-bought granola.