Pear Pie Crumble

This pear pie crumble has all you'd ever hope for in a pie, with the extra crisp on top only a sweet crumble can provide! Double-win! I sealed the deal with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of my favorite homemade salted caramel sauce. You are going to want this dessert on repeat this fall when we're all lucky enough to have pears in season! Yum! 

I'm totally a sucker for pears. When they are at their peak of ripeness, there's nothing like them. I grew up with my Mom canning pears, and can still remember how sweet the kitchen would smell when she'd spend the afternoon carefully peeling the skin off each pear, slicing them out of the core, cooking them on the stove, and carefully filling up each jar with steaming pears. She'd always have them all lined up on the counter top. Their soft ivory color of the pears in the jars looked so beautiful together. I'd always get so excited when dinner came around and my Mom would ask me to go in the basement to grab a jar of pears for my family to share. She always added a little extra sugar to the jar while canning, so the juice the pears were canned in turned into an incredibly delicious syrup. My siblings and I would often fight over who gets to steal a taste of it before Mom noticed what we were up to.

I was baking a bunch of pies up a while ago, and I ended up with an extra pie crust half. I knew right away I wanted to use of some juicy fresh pears I picked up from the store earlier that day with some peaches (recipes to come!). I'd never really had a pear crumble or even a pear pie before, so immediately this recipe was born and I think it turned out amazing! 

The recipe really has three parts to it - the crust (which is my Perfect Pie Crust recipe - if you haven't made it you, you will LOVE everything about it), the filling, and the crumble. The crust has only 5 ingredients and comes together super fast. I pre-baked my crust just to make sure everything got baked through on the bottom. The crumble on top cooks much faster than the crust on the bottom, so a little pre-bake went a long way.

When choosing your pears for this pie crumble, I would stick with pears on the more ripe side. Not mushy ripe, but not hard either. Picky, I know, but it will greatly influence the overall texture of the filling. So set yourself up for success by choosing a pear that would be perfect enough for you to bite right into at that moment! Slowly stir in the dry ingredients and pour everything into the pre-baked pie crust.

The crumble has a little bit of oat action. I used old fashioned oats and quick oats to give the crumble a bit more texture. Toasting the oats would have been a really good idea - wished I would have done it! Why do I just think of these things now!? OH well. When you make this, toast up those oats and let me know how it goes, deal? The crumble is one quick spin in the mixer and right onto the pie.

Lastly, I couldn't resist. I grabbed a carton of my favorite vanilla bean ice cream, dolloped a scoop on top, and drizzled some of my homemade salted caramel right on top. We polished this off in two days... between my husband and I. Good thing my half marathon training is in full swing, eh? Eek! Totally worth every sweet bite. The texture in this is incredible! You have the sweet soft filling, with the classic gorgeous pie crust buttery flakiness underneath, and then that crumble, OH that crumble, to take it home. THIS my friends, officially marked the beginning of fall for my taste buds.

Pear Pie Crumble

makes 8 servings

ingredients:

crust: 

1/2 recipe of my Perfect Pie Crust (one pie round)

filling:

3-4 large juicy ripe pears, cored and sliced thin

1 1/2 T lemon juice

1/4 C flour

1/4 C brown sugar

3 Tablespoons granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon almond extract 

crumble:

1/2 C (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cubed

1/2 t vanilla

1/2 C flour

1/2 t cinnamon

1/2 C old fashioned oatmeal 

1/4 C quick oats

pinch of sea salt

method:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Prepare the pie crust according to the directions in the recipe, then press one pie round into a greased pie dish. Crimp the edges of the pie dough. Make a bunch of tiny holes in the bottom surface of the pie crust with a fork. Pre-bake pie crust for about 5-7 minutes. Remove from the oven, and set aside. (Pie will be cooked again, so the pie crust will still be a tad raw at this point). 

2. To make the filling, in a medium bowl, gently stir together the sliced pears, lemon juice, and vanilla. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon, and almond extract. Gently fold in the dry ingredients to the pear mixture. Pour filling into the pre-baked pie crust. 

3. To make the crumble, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix the butter and vanilla together. In a small, separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (flour, cinnamon, oatmeal x2, and sea salt). Add dry mixture to the butter mixture and mix on low speed until everything is combined into a crumble. Top pear pie with the crumble. 

4. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20-25 minutes until the crumble on top is toasted. Let cool completely before serving, at least 2 hours to fully set. Serve a la mode, with a bit of salted caramel drizzle! 

Recipe source: Baking with Blondie