Easy Baked Pears With Streusel

Recipe: Baked Pears Recipe »

This baked pears recipe is simple and unfancy but absolutely gloriously good. Fresh pears are topped with a buttery streusel and then baked until lusciously tender. With around 5 minutes active prep time and using simple ingredients and seasonal fruit. Learn how to make baked pears with this simple recipe.

This is one of those pear recipes that you can make on the fly because it uses pantry staples. There's nothing complex in these at all. It's also a great dessert to serve to a crowd because it's easy to make a large batch of these. Pears are one of the best parts of Autumn and Winter and I actually prefer them to apples because of their gentler flavour.

What is the best way to core pears? With a melon baller! Seriously! I core apples and pears with a melon baller and you can see how perfectly the core comes out.

Can you cook pears in the oven? YES! Baking pears means that you can just leave these to bake or roast in the oven without having to attend to or stir anything.

Should pears be peeled before baking? No need! Pears have a very thin skin that doesn't need peeling. Plus the peel helps the pear keep its shape.

Will pears soften in the oven? Yes, if your pears are unripe or very crisp they will soften in the oven.

What pears are best for baking? Any sort of firm pear works from Beurre Bosc to Red Anjou to Barlett. I actually picked up some Piqaboo pears that have a striking colour like Autumn leaves but are crispy like a nashi pear. At first I thought it was a big mistake baking these so I just tried this recipe out with a small batch but they were absolutely beautiful baked! Mr NQN ate 4 halves before I stopped him!

Useful Recipe Tips For Baked Pears

1 - The streusel is a simple mix of equal weight flour, butter and brown sugar and half weight of oats with some spices (keep this streusel recipe handy, it's so good!). Making streusel is so simple and I like making it in the food processor or Thermomix to cut down on time. But you can also rub the butter in by hand if you prefer, it just takes a few minutes to do this.

2 - I make my streusel first and then cut and core the pears so that they don't brown.

3 - Baked pears are an economical dessert. You can give one pear half per person (although I think people would probably want 2 halves it is that good!).

4 - The time needed to bake the pears depends on a couple of things: the size of the pear and the ripeness. Sometimes pears only take 25 minutes to bake if they're very soft. My pears were firm and crisp and 140g/5ozs each and took 45 minutes but adjust if yours differ in size and ripeness. For example, I baked 250g/8.8oz firm pears for 55 minutes.

5 - I serve them as is because they really don't need any adornment they're that good. Otherwise some vanilla ice cream or nice Greek yogurt would be great.

6 - Store any leftover pears in an airtight container in the fridge where they will last for up to 5 days.

Y'all know I love my pears and there are so many pear recipes on my blog. Next time give my Oven Roasted Self Saucing Caramel Pears or Golden Caramelised Pears a try. If you like a classic pear dessert try my Spiced Red Wine Poached Pears.

Baked Pears Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 45 minutes

Makes 12 pear halves

• 60g/2ozs plain all purpose flour
• 60g/2ozs brown sugar
• 60g/2ozs butter, cubed
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• Pinch ground cloves
• Pinch salt
• 25g/1oz rolled oats or quick cook oats
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 6 pears (around 140g/5ozs each)

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 180C/350F or 160C/320F fan forced. Place the flour, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt in a food processor and pulse until you get fine crumbs. (Thermomix directions: 10 seconds, speed #6). Mix in the rolled oats and vanilla until you get a slightly damp mixture that can clump.

Step 2 - Cut the pears in half and then shave off the base so that you get a flat bottom. Cut out the core with a melon baller tool. Place them in a large baking dish. Divide the streusel topping among all of the pear halves. Bake for 40-45 minutes. If your pears are very unripe you may need 10 minutes more.

Honestly pears are one of the few things that I really enjoy about Winter. If I could be in summer or spring all year round I'd be very happy. It's always with the change of weather that I get a cold and recently I caught one when the temperature dipped suddenly. Unfortunately it was also around the time for my birthday karaoke with the Elliotts. It was a day that I was looking forward to for weeks.

Despite many cups of Korean honey yuzu tea, orange juice, blankets and manuka honey lozenges and rest it took a while to get rid of the congestion. I even postponed going out with friends in favour of rest just to aid in my recovery. I really wanted to be able to sing at karaoke and even had a karaoke song in my mind and it was a power ballad because this girl loves a dramatic power ballad.

I wish I could tell you that by some miracle I woke up on the Sunday and my throat was clear but it wasn't. I still had congestion in my sinuses and I still sounded pretty bad. Still, I had a great time singing along rather than doing a solo. And hopefully I'll be ok for a power ballad the next time!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you enjoy winter? What songs do you like to sing at karaoke?