Wine Poached Pear Grilled Cheese

Everyone will enjoy these red wine poached pear grilled cheese sandwiches. Made with homemade Quark cheese, poached pears, and served with chocolate sauce.

Red Wine Poached Pear Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

I must admit. I was completely blown away when I was asked to create a grilled cheese dessert for Wisconsin Cheese..

Dessert? Sure!

Grilled Cheese?? uh…. Lemmethink….

You’re talking to the girl who prefers Velveeta in her grilled cheese.

I have NEVER made a grilled cheese with anything other than cheese and ham. Seriously! I’m not much of a veggie fan, and I’m scared of mustards, relishes, and most compotes. This recipe really, really had me stepping outside of my comfort zone.

It took a lot of back and forth ideas between me and Mr. Quart. Different cheeses with different ingredients. We kept coming back to fruit because of it being a dessert. I suggested pineapple, apricot, and apples but nothing really stuck. And then to pick a cheese?? Oh no! It’s a good thing for search engines, because I wanted to try something different.

Enter Quark.

I made some Quark and Wisconsin Cheese provided me with a sample. If you have never heard of Quark, much less tried it, think of it as a cousin to Ricotta or Mascarpone. It’s tangy and creamy and also makes a really good butter replacement.

To make the dessert part of the sandwich, I found an Angel Food Cake loaf at the grocery store. Not a traditional round, but an actual loaf of cake. Like a loaf of bread. Perfect-o!

I sliced the cake into 1/2 inch thick slices and placed them into the freezer to firm them up. While they are in the freezer, sweeten up the Quark with a touch of honey and thin it with cream. Then thinly slice the pear halves and soften, not melt, your butter. Butter the cake, add the cheese, and pears and cook on a hot skillet.

To top off the dessert, I made some wine infused chocolate sauce.

For MORE decadent Grilled Cheese sandwiches, check out the Online Magazine, Grate.Pair.Share. I’m sure you’ll find something new to try!

Disclosure: It is an honor to work with the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. This recipe was created to celebrate Grilled Cheese Month! All opinions expressed are my own.

This post is part of a three recipe series. Get the first two recipes for Homemade Quark Cheese and Red Wine Poached Pears now.

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Yield: 6

Wine Poached Pear Grilled Cheese

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Sweet grilled cheese sandwiches filled with fresh Quark cheese, wine poached pears, and served with warm chocolate sauce.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 3 minutes

Total Time 18 minutes

Ingredients

• 8 oz. Quark cheese
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 2 – 5 tablespoons of heavy cream
• 1 Angel Food Cake loaf
• Wine Poached Pears, with syrup
• Butter, softened to room temperature
• 1/4 cup hot fudge sauce

Instructions

1. Slice Angel Food Cake loaf into ½ inch slices, just thicker than your finger. Place the slices on a cookie sheet and place into freezer.
2. *NOTE - Do not completely freeze the cake. You just want it firmed up to so that it does not rip when adding the butter.
3. In a mixing bowl, combine Quark Cheese and honey, and whip with a wire whisk attachment. Slowly add cream to thin the cheese and make it creamy. Only add enough cream so that the cheese no longer clumps inside the wire whisk.
4. Thinly slice wine poached pear halves horizontally.
5. Preheat griddle over medium heat. Remove cake slices from the freezer, and butter one side. On the other side, add some sweetened Quark. Place buttered side down on griddle, add 3 slices of pear and top with another slice of cake with Quark on the inside and butter on the outside. Grill for 2 minutes and flip over. Grill for one minute and remove from heat.
6. Continue grilling all the sandwiches.
7. For the chocolate sauce, heat the hot fudge sauce in the microwave for 20 seconds. Add 2 tablespoons of the wine sauce and stir until combined. The chocolate sauce should be thin and warm. Re-heat if it’s thick, being careful not to scorch.
8. To serve, cut Grilled Cheese Dessert Sandwiches on the diagonal and serve with the warm chocolate sauce either drizzled over or on the side.

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