Filo pastry cups with pastry cream

Preheat the oven to 180°C and remove the filo pastry sheets from the freezer.

Halve the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds. Add 450 ml of milk, the vanilla seeds, and the vanilla pod to a saucepan and heat over medium heat. Stir regularly.

Combine the remaining milk, egg yolks, and sugar in a bowl and whisk well. Add the cornstarch and whisk until smooth.

Remove the vanilla pod from the warm milk. Add a little of the warm milk to the cold cornstarch mixture and stir. Then add the cold mixture back to the warm mixture.

Stir well with a whisk and heat until it begins to thicken. It should have the consistency of custard. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the pastry cream into a shallow dish, cover with cling film, and refrigerate until chilled.

Melt 20g butter in a saucepan. Place one sheet of filo pastry on your work surface and spread it thinly with the melted butter. Sprinkle with ground cinnamon and place the next sheet of filo pastry on top. Brush this sheet with butter and ground cinnamon as well, and place the third sheet of filo pastry on top. Spread the top layer with butter as well and sprinkle with ground cinnamon.

Now cut the stacked filo pastry sheets into quarters. This will give you four squares. Carefully press these squares into four muffin cups to create cups. Repeat this process with the remaining three sheets of filo pastry, so you have a total of eight cups.

Bake the filo pastry cups in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool.

Remove the pastry cream from the refrigerator and beat it with the whipped cream until smooth.

Slice the pear and finely chop the chocolate. Heat the remaining butter in a pan and sauté the pear until it begins to brown slightly. Let it cool.

Fill the filo pastry cups with the cream and garnish with the pear, red berries and chocolate.