Chocolate Pear Crisp
"These individual pear crisps are from the BBC Good Food website, by Mary Cadogan. It's not a crumble type crisp, but a nice change if you've been eating oaty fruit crumbles all winter. As the topping has no butter it is a lighter option, and it also doesn't have any wheat flour, so is good for anyone avoiding that. When I made this, my 3 pears were past their best so ended up with only 3 instead of 4 portions. When cooking the pears, I omitted the sugar, used orange juice (ran out of lemons), whiskey and spiced it with some ginger. As it is practically fat-free I had no qualms about serving it with a dollop of cream..."
- Ready In:
- 55mins
- Ingredients:
- 8
- Yields:
-
4 desserts
- Serves:
- 4
ingredients
- 3 pears
- 1⁄2 lemon, juice of
- 1 tablespoon light muscovado sugar
- 4 teaspoons poire william pear liqueur (optional)
- 1 egg white
- 50 g icing sugar
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 25 g ground almonds
directions
- If you're going to cook this immediately, preheat the oven to 160C/ gas 3 while you cook the pears on the hob. Otherwise you can leave the preheating until you're ready to cook the topping.(e.g. I made my pear filling ahead of time, so heated the oven while I made the topping).
- Peel (if desired), core and chop pears into small chunks.
- Place in a saucepan with lemon juice and sugar. Bring to the boil, then cover and cook for 10 minutes. Uncover and cook for a further 8-10 minutes to allow the liquids to thicken up.
- Divide between 4 ramekins, and if using, top with the liqueur.
- Sift the icing sugar and cocoa together, then stir in the ground almonds.
- Whisk the egg white until stiff, then fold into the dry ingredients. (It also works the other way round -- so don't worry).
- When the cocoa sugar almond mixture is combined with the egg white, it should be a stiff dropping consistency. Top the pear filled ramekins with it, it will spread and puff during cooking so it doesn't have to reach the edges or be enormously neat.
- Bake in the oven at 160 C/gas 3 until the topping is firm to the touch - 20-25 minutes. Serve hot or cold.
Questions & Replies
Got a question?
Share it with the community!
Reviews
Have any thoughts about this recipe?
Share it with the community!
RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
I work in a local museum, training to be a curator. I enjoy baking at weekends, mainly sweet stuff but the BF and I are trying to put a stop to the expanding waistlines. This means fewer, or smaller batches rather than sugar substitutes or margarine. Butter, cream and sugar all the way (in moderation)!
It's not a proper weekend unless I've burned myself, probably getting something in or out of the oven.
I learnt to knit with the support of the people in the Learn to Knit thread on the craft forum and am now involved with a fun local group. For laughs, I go to quite a few stand-up comedy nights around town.
