How To Make A Pear Crisp
It is that season again – when apples get all the attention and their green oblong cousins, the pears, don’t. I sometimes get this and I sometimes don’t. It is easy to default to apples and the variety of apples is greater, but pears really make for delicious cooking. Although I enjoy a poached pear, it seems more appropriate given the season to just make a pear crips. Tender pear pieces under a crunchy streusel topping makes a great desert and, although it is getting chilly, a scoop of ice cream on top makes it even better.
How To Make A Pear Crisp – The Pears
The beauty about making any crisp is that the fruit is pretty much interchangeable. It is the firmer pears, like a bosc, that make for a good pear crisp. The pieces will stay together, but still become very tender. This is not to say a mix of pears isn’t warranted. No, having many textures of pears in the crisp is never a bad thing. Most of the work when it comes to a pear crisp is peeling, coring and chopping the pears. It takes about 20 minutes, but it is worth it.
How To Make A Pear Crisp – The Streusel
It is pretty standard to cover the pear crisp with a streusel topping and since it is so delicious, I see know reason to buck tradition. There is one exception – the oats. Streusel topping usually contains oats, but I don’t include it in mine. The ultimate eaters of my pear crisps have some funky grain eating issues, so no oats. The truth is, a streusel can be made in many ways. The most important part of streusel making is the cutting of the butter into the flour and other ingredients. This ensures a tender streusel. When skipping the oats, I replace them with almonds first cutting butter into flour as the base and then stirring in the almonds. The almonds are not only delicious, but they go well with the pears. They also go well with the butter and cinnamon found in the streusel.
How To Make A Pear Crisp – The Third Layer
A pear crisp is delicious. A pear crisp a’la mode is really delicious. Vanilla or cinnamon ice cream is worthy of consideration when making this dessert. Serve the pear crisp warm! It is nice when the ice cream gets all melty!
The ‘How To Make Pear Crisp’ video is below. The full recipe follows.
- 4lbs of Pears
- 1/3 cup of sugar
- 2 Tbsp Flour
- 1 cup of flour
- ½ cup of sugar
- ½ cup of light brown sugar
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- 1 stick of cold butter, cubed
- ½ cup of shaved almonds
- Pre-heat the oven to 350F
- Wash and peel the pears.
- Cut the pears in quarters and remove the core.
- Cut the pears into medium sized chunks.
- In a large bowl, toss the pears with the sugar and flour.
- In a medium bowl, mix the flour, sugars, cinnamon, and nutmeg with a fork. Add the cubed butter and, with your fingers or a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it looks sandy and there are no large lumps. Stir in the almonds.
- Pour the pears into the prepared pan. Spread the pears evenly in the pan. Top the pears with the streusel mixture, spreading it out evenly.
- Bake the crisp for an hour or until it is bubbly and the streusel is golden brown.
- Serve warm with ice cream.
- Feel free to mix up the pears with different kind. Oats and other nuts can be added to the streusel if desired.
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