Chocolate Pear Crisp

Cat R.'s Note:

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...

• Total Time: 55 mins
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 4

Yield: 4.0 desserts

• 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:

1. 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).
2. Peel (if desired), core and chop pears into small chunks.
3. 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.
4. Divide between 4 ramekins, and if using, top with the liqueur.
5. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa together, then stir in the ground almonds.
6. Whisk the egg white until stiff, then fold into the dry ingredients. (It also works the other way round -- so don't worry).
7. 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.
8. Bake in the oven at 160 C/gas 3 until the topping is firm to the touch - 20-25 minutes. Serve hot or cold.