Chocolate Pear Crisp - cooking recipe

Ingredients

3 pears
1/2 lemon, juice of
1 tablespoon light muscovado sugar
4 teaspoons poire william pear liqueur (optional)
1 egg white
50 g icing sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
25 g ground almonds

Preparation

If you're going to cook this immediately, preheat the oven to 160C/ gas 3 while you cook the pears on the hob. Otherwise you can leave the preheating until you're ready to cook the topping.(e.g. I made my pear filling ahead of time, so heated the oven while I made the topping).
Peel (if desired), core and chop pears into small chunks.
Place in a saucepan with lemon juice and sugar. Bring to the boil, then cover and cook for 10 minutes. Uncover and cook for a further 8-10 minutes to allow the liquids to thicken up.
Divide between 4 ramekins, and if using, top with the liqueur.
Sift the icing sugar and cocoa together, then stir in the ground almonds.
Whisk the egg white until stiff, then fold into the dry ingredients. (It also works the other way round -- so don't worry).
When the cocoa sugar almond mixture is combined with the egg white, it should be a stiff dropping consistency. Top the pear filled ramekins with it, it will spread and puff during cooking so it doesn't have to reach the edges or be enormously neat.
Bake in the oven at 160 C/gas 3 until the topping is firm to the touch - 20-25 minutes. Serve hot or cold.