Cranberry, Pear and Vanilla Crisp

Submitted by fluffernutter

"The sweet-and-tart fragrant crisp is nirvana for aficionados of crisps and crumbles! The recipe is from In the Sweet Kitchen, except that I added the mace, since pears and mace were made for each other."

 

• Ready In: 1hr
• Ingredients: 12
• Serves: 6

ingredients

• Topping

• 1⁄4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1⁄4 cup old fashioned oats
• 1⁄4 cup packed brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons cold butter
• 1⁄4 teaspoon ground nutmeg or 1/4 teaspoon mace

• Filling

• 1 plump vanilla bean, seeds of
• 1⁄4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1⁄4 cup granulated sugar
• 1⁄2 tablespoon cornstarch
• 5 -6 medium pears, ripe but not mushy (Bartlett, Anjou or Bosc)
• 3 cups fresh cranberries
• 1⁄4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

directions

1. Preheat oven to 375. Combine topping ingredients with a pastry blender, in afood processor, or with your fingers until biggest bits are the size of the oats. Set aside or refrigerate for up to 2 days.
2. In a large bowl, stir together the vanilla seeds, brown sugar, white sugar, cornstarch and cinnamon. Add pears and cranberries and stir to coat evenly.
3. Spoon fruit into a large, shallow dish (for more surface area and therefore more topping in each bite!) and top with crumble mixture. Bake for 45 minutes until topping is golden and filing bubbles up. Cool 15 minutes then serve with vanilla ice cream.

Reviews

[incdeb]

This was very good, I served it for company and everyone enjoyed it. I doubled the topping (I usually prefer extra "crumble" on my crisps) and I cut down the cranberries to 2 cups and increased the pears - it was tart enough. I did not have a vanilla bean, which I'm sure would have been a delicious addition. To compensate, I served it with a ladle of vanilla custard sauce which complemented the crisp nicely. (my sauce was quickly made from Birds Custard Powder plus vanilla extract - though if one wanted to go all-out and do it from scratch, look at Recipe #59955 ). This is a great winter/holiday season dessert. Thanks for sharing.