Cinnamon-Poached Pear & Prune Fingers
Allergen lists cover the priority allergens in the recipe as written. Always check your own ingredient labels, and introduce each new allergen on its own first.
Ingredients
- 2 firm-ripe pears, about 350 g (12 oz) total
- 4 pitted prunes, about 30 g (1 oz), unsulphured and with no sweetener added
- 150 ml (2/3 cup) water
- 1 small cinnamon stick, or 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
- 1 strip unwaxed orange zest (optional, removed before serving)
Method
- 1. Peel the pears, quarter them lengthwise, cut out the cores, and cut each quarter into thick spears — shape them now, before poaching, while they still hold together.
- 2. Chop the prunes very finely, to no larger than 3-4 mm. Prunes left whole or halved are sticky, round and dense, which makes them a genuine choking risk; finely chopped they melt into the poaching liquid.
- 3. Put the water, cinnamon, lemon juice, orange zest and chopped prunes in a small saucepan and bring to a bare simmer.
- 4. Add the pear spears, cover, and poach gently for 8-12 minutes depending on ripeness, turning once.
- 5. Lift out a spear, cool it, and squash it between thumb and forefinger. It must flatten with almost no pressure. If not, poach 3 more minutes and re-test.
- 6. Remove the cinnamon stick and zest. Spoon over a little of the thin poaching liquid as it is — do not reduce it to a syrup, because boiling it down concentrates the dried fruit's sugars into what is effectively a sweetener, which is not appropriate under 12 months and is hard on erupting teeth.
- 7. Cool to just warm and serve as part of a meal rather than as a between-meal sweet, and wipe baby's gums and teeth afterwards. Keeps 3 days refrigerated or freezes for 2 months in single portions; re-test the squash test after reheating.
How to serve by age
6–8 months
Serve the poached spears whole at finger length, about 8-9 cm (3-3 1/2 in) long and two adult fingers thick, so several centimetres clear the top of a closed fist for the palmar (whole-hand) grasp. Poached pear is very slippery — dust a spear with a little ground oat or unsweetened infant cereal if baby cannot keep hold of it.
9–12 months
Chop the poached pear into 1 cm (1/2 in) pea-sized cubes and stir through a spoonful of the thin poaching liquid, offering a few at a time so baby uses the pincer grasp to pick up each cube between thumb and forefinger.
Paediatric note
Prunes and pears are both high in sorbitol and soluble fibre, which draw water into the stool, making this a genuinely useful dish when a baby becomes constipated after starting solids. Cooking is also the correct fix for any fruit that is too firm to squash raw — poaching, not smaller pieces, is what makes a hard fruit safe for a baby. Nothing sweet is added here, and in particular honey must never be given to a baby under 12 months, cooked or raw, because of the risk of infant botulism. Choose dried fruit without sulphite preservatives, which would otherwise make this a Sulphites-containing recipe.
Source guidance: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/baby/weaning-and-feeding/
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