Preheat the oven to gas 5 / 190C / 375F
Peel and halve the pears and remove any hard or stringy core
Put the pears into an ovenproof glass dish, flat sides facing up
Chop the butter into small pieces (I use Stork margarine in the gold foil wrapper) and sprinkle over the pears
Shake the sugar evenly over each
Bake for 30 minutes, basting often with the juices released
Take the pears out of the dish and keep warm
Either transfer the liquid from the dish into a small pan or put the dish on the stove and boil the liquid until it turns a golden colour
Stir in the hot milk and cook until smooth and darker in colour (if you add the milk cold it will spit at you and the temp change could crack your dish!)
Serve each person a warm pear half with some of the caramel sauce poured over, add a scoop of ice cream and sprinkle the chopped pecans (or chocolate chips) over the top
