Pear Cranberry Crisp
Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 08:44AM A couple of years ago, Hubby and I took a trip to France. We ate drank and were merry and brought back some fun in alcohol form to share with our families. My parents were on the receiving end of a bottle of armagnac and some Creme de Caramel a la Fleur de Sel (sea salt creamy caramel liqueur).
A wedding, a house, a pregnancy later and those bottles still hadn't been opened as my parents were waiting to share them with us. I had not been able to consume any during my pregnancy so we waited.
Well recently, we had another reason to celebrate. I discovered that I have an older brother. It's kind of a long story, but essentially he is my father's son from a relationship before he met my mom. Our whole family has embraced this new family member and his lovely wife, and when we all got together for a meal recently we cracked open the bottles from France.
The Creme de Caramel was well received and everyone agreed that it would be worth the airfare to France to fetch another bottle. The armagnac however, did not get such rave reviews.
Maybe we just weren't drinking it right (I later read that you should use champagne flutes and merely sip it), but it was a potent drink without the smoothness of cognac that we have grown to love. I guess the "if you just down it, it's not so bad" theory bantered about by a few at the table was not the ideal solution.
So my dad insisted that we take the bottle of armagnac home, which we did. And I decided I would use it cooking, because although it was strong stuff, it did have some nice rich tones.
Then, luck had it, the book by fellow blogger David Lebovitz (and I use the term 'fellow' loosely, as I aspire to be in the same league as him someday), Ready for Dessert was on the shelf of my local library.
I took it home and spent some serious time ogglingtaking in all the photos that could send your diabetes skyrocketing with one glance. For someone with a serious sweet tooth, this book is a little slice of heaven.
I had some delicious bartlett pears sitting around, since they are in season, and decided to start out with something easy.
This pear crisp was great using an olive-oil, transfat free margarine (but if David asks, you didn't hear that from me!), although I'm sure if made as recommended with butter, it could be even better.
Anyhow, the recipe calls to soak the dried fruit in grappa. I substituted armagnac and was not sorry!
Enjoy!
Pear Cranberry Crisp
Fruit filling
3/4 cup dried cranberries
3 tbsp armagnac
8 medium pears
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
Topping
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup of chopped pecans
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup cornmeal
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup good quality margarine (canola oil/olive oil blend) or butter
Place cranberries in a cup with the armagnac and let the fruit soak up the liquor for at least 1/2 hour.
Peel, core and cube the pears. Place in an 9 x9 inch square baking dish. Mix in granulated sugar, vanilla and soaked cranberries and armagnac.
In a bowl, mix together flour, brown sugar, chopped pecans, cinnamon and cornmeal.
Add in the margarine and combine to make a coarse meal.
Spread evenly over fruit mixture and bake at 350F for 45 to 50 min until top is bubbling and a deep golden brown.
Recipe adapted from Ready for Dessert by David Lebovitz.
Recipe notes: In the book, the recipe calls to blend the topping ingredients in a food processor before adding chilled butter.
Reader Comments (2)
A cornmeal topping... Hmmm... This is giving me all sorts of ideas! That Creme de Caramel a la Fleur de Sel sounds awesome. Sadly, I won't be going to France soon, but I think a trip to Sweet Olenka's for some of those caramel sea salt truffles might be a good substitute!
The cornmeal topping gives it a nice crunch! It is quite excellent. And the little bit of booze in the dried fruit... decadence.
Sweet Olenka's will have to be the next best thing, and I can say without a doubt, it's certainly a worthy consolation prize.