One or two days before, prepare the pears. Put the sugar and water in saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve the sugar.

Cook for 5 minutes or until it thickens. Put the fire off, add the vanilla extract and the pears.

Let them marinade in the syrup at least overnight.

When you are ready to assemble the verrines, drain the pears from the syrup, drizzle with lemon juice and keep the syrup aside.

With an electric mixer, whisk the eggs with the sugar for a few minutes, until very light and fluffy.

Mix the flour and hazelnut mixture together and add this to the eggs. Do this gently, by hand, so as not to deflate the mixture. You want to keep it as fluffy as possible.

Pour this mixture into 2 x 22cm - 8.5 inch round tins (greased with butter and lightly coated in flour).

Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C - 355°F for 10 minutes.

Let the cakes cool down, then unmould them and cut out 16 discs (the size of your verrines).

Mix the ricotta, sugar and 5 tbsp of the pear syrup (keep the rest aside) together.

Whip the cream and gently fold it into the ricotta mix.

Drizzle the syrup on the cake discs and then put one at the bottom of each verrine. Add some ricotta mousse and some pear cubes, then another disc of cake and so on, until you run out of ingredients. Finish off with the mousse, pears and hazelnuts.

Refrigerate at least 3 hours before serving.