Chocolate can be melted in the oven quite easily but you will need to be very diligent about watching it. It’s easy to get caught up in your other baking chores and not realize that you have overheated it until it is too late. To melt chocolate in the oven, heat the oven to 110 degrees. Chop the chocolate and place in a dish inside the oven. Keep the door open and check regularly. It will take about an hour to melt thoroughly.

1 orange
1 cup sugar
1 cup red wine
1 cup water
1 cinnamon stick
8 Ripe Pears

1 Wash the orange and thinly pare away the rind with a potato peeler. Shred the rind finely and put into a deep, flame-proof casserole. Add the sugar, wine and water and heat gently, stirring until sugar dissolved. Add the cinnamon stick and boil for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat.

2 Peel the pears, leaving the stalks on, and stand them in the red wine syrup. Cover the dish with a large piece of foil, pushing the stalks through the foil to hold the pears upright.

2 1/2 cups milk
1/2 vanilla bean
1 piece lemon rind
4 eggs
1/2 cup sugar

1 Put the milk, vanilla bean and lemon rind in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and lift out the vanilla bean and lemon rind.

2 In a bowl, with the Turbo Stick hand-held blender, beat eggs with half the sugar and gradually pour in the hot milk, stirring constantly.

3 Melt the remaining sugar in a saucepan over a moderate heat until golden brown.

4 Divide between 6 ramekins and tum them so the caramel coats the bottoms and sides.