Pear crumble

Like my friend Tina wrote on another post, “Spring?” – the cloudy sky and continuous rain here in Sao Paulo look a lot more like fall.

To warm up these cold days, something delicious and easy: crumble. I used two different recipes from DH mag to create this pear version – one of the original recipes called for apples and looked wonderful, too.

Pear crumble
adapted from Donna Hay magazine

3 Packham pears, peeled, cored and chopped in 2cm pieces
¼ cup (50g) caster sugar*
juice of 1 lime
¼ cup (60ml) water
½ vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Topping:
¾ cup (105g) all purpose flour
¼ cup (50g) caster sugar
¼ cup + 1 tablespoon (70g) unsalted butter, slightly cold

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF. Place the pears, sugar, lime juice, water, vanilla (seeds + bean) and cinnamon in a medium saucepan and mix to combine. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring a few times, until pears are soft and liquid is syrupy. Remove from heat. Spoon the pear mixture into two 1 cup-capacity (240ml) ovenproof dishes.

Make the topping: place all the ingredients in a bowl and, using your fingertips, rub them together until mixture resemble breadcrumbs. Sprinkle over the pear mixture and bake for 30 minutes or until golden.

* the pears I used were very ripe, that’s why I only used ¼ cup of sugar

Serves 2 (generously)