Maple Pear Crunchy Crumble

Knowing that Lena, from Frozen wings, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and I are baking this dessert for our bake-along, I can't stop thinking and relating this dessert to my maple-glazed apples which I have cooked with my buttermilk pancake post.

After enjoying the maple-glazed apples so much, I thought of making this dessert all according to Zoe's ways. Here are my concepts of transformations:

First is to infuse the maple flavours into pears as much as possible. To do that, I have to slow-roast my pears in maple syrup instead of cutting them into pieces and assemble them as crumble.

Second is to eat this dessert with nice, crispy and crunchy crumble. To do that, I had to bake my crumble mix separately from the pear mixture.

Third is not to hide these beautiful walnut from this dessert. Being part of core ingredients, I had roasted some intact walnuts separately so that they are prominently tasted as part of this whole gastronomic action. LOL!

Last and most important of all is the selection of pears. Based on Australian Pears, I am using Beurré Bosc variety which I reckon they are the best option for baking.

Here I am presenting Maple Pear Crunchy Crumble, all baked according to "Zoe's ways"... LOL!

Sweet maple-infused pears with crunchy walnut crumble

The variety that I used for this bake

Slow roasting the pears...

Baking the crumble...

Eat them all together...

Here's the recipe from the book, Bon Appétit Desserts by Barbara Fairchild

(with my modification in blue)

Topping

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup walnuts
2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

Filling

3 1/2 pounds firm but ripe Anjou pears, peeled, cored, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
(I'm using Beurré Bosc pears, peeled, cored and halved)
2/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup raisins
2 tbsp all purpose flour
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp crystallized ginger

Extras to serve

pre-roasted walnuts
sour cream (I didn't use this)

Make topping:

Combine all ingredients in processor. Process until walnuts are coarsely chopped and small moist clumps form. Transfer topping to medium bowl. Cover and chill until firm, about 1 hr.

(I didn't use a processor to mix my topping. I chopped the walnuts coarsely and mixed all together with a fork and didn't chill it before baking.)

Make filling:

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Place all ingredients in large bowl; toss to blend. Let stand 15 min.

Transfer pear mixture to 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish. Sprinkle topping over pears. (I didn't do that. Instead, I cover the pears with baking paper and then sealed the baking dish with double layers of foil.) Bake until pears are tender, juices bubble thickly and topping is golden and crisp, about 30 min. (I bake mine for 45 min. Remove baking paper and foil and bake for another 5 min.) Let stand at least 10 min - sauce will thicken and become glossy while standing. Serve warm with sour cream (or crunchy crispy crumble and pre-roasted walnuts).

Note:

I've baked my dessert using 1/4 of this recipe. This amount contains about 500g of pears which is about 3 middle sized pears and used a 19 cm x 10 cm baking dish to bake this amount of pears.

Happy Baking
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