From Scratch

Who doesn’t enjoy a change? I am so happy to have found a good recipe for a crisp that doesn’t have the usual oatmeal in the topping. And oh my, the filling has a dab of cream cheese.

Back in August, on a really hot day, I saw Southern Pear Crisp on my cyberpal jolynna’s blog, Turkey Creek Lane, which is in the blogroll. I salivated. But despite the best efforts of supermarkets to persuade me that everything is always in season, I believe in seasonality and – rightly or wrongly – pears are autumn and winter fruit to me.

A few days ago I found pears from next-door Massachussetts — I didn’t know pears are grown there — and bought some. As I re-read the recipe I thought, Mini crisps. Not so sweet. (Confession: although I love to bake, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.)

I replaced vanilla wafers with ginger snaps, their molasses echoing the molasses in the brown sugar, added nutmeg and made individual desserts. I  considered four standard custard cups, which would be fine if whipped cream or ice cream is an accompaniment as jolynna likes, but they look kind of mean on their own. So for two larger crisps, still serving four, I went with disposables until I find something else that size. I could hardly wait to split one with Mr. Knife Skills. The flavor of the pecans shines through and while it’s not overly sweet, it is rich. Jolynna’s original is here if you’d prefer it in a casserole dish.

Cook’s Illustrated has just done a taste test to determine which commonly-found pears are best suited for various purposes. The staff preferred Bartletts for crisps and general baking, followed by Bosc, deemed best for poaching. Anjous were too juicy and soft for baking. I’d already forgotten which ranked first when I bought the New England Boscs, but even if I’d remembered I’d have gotten them anyway because they didn’t travel thousands of miles.

When preparing the pears, a melon baller makes fast work of removing the seeds and stem areas. I simply chop around the fibrous core running down the middle but a paring knife will remove it. Of course you can leave it there if it doesn’t bother you.

Mini Pear Crisps with Pecans

2 TB (1 oz.) cream cheese, room temperature
2 TB light brown sugar, packed
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp fresh-ground nutmeg
pinch of salt

2 ripe pears (about 12 oz) peeled, cored and cut into bite-size chunks

2 TB chopped pecans
8 ginger snaps, crushed
2 TB (1 oz.) unsalted butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly spray four custard cups or two “pot pie” size disposable foil pans.

Mix sugar, softened cream cheese, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt until well blended. Stir in pears and pour into the pans or cups.

Mix pecans, crushed ginger snaps and butter in another bowl. [A mini-chop is ideal for this. If crushing the ginger snaps in a plastic bag, break into halves or quarters; they’re very sturdy. ella]

Sprinkle over pears. Bake 23-30 minutes or until bubbly, the topping has browned and the pears are tender. Boscs will take longer than Bartletts. Cool on a rack until warm or room temperature.

Serve with ice cream or whipped cream, if desired.

Makes 4 small or 2 large, serving four

Ginger snaps and trans fat: Read labels. Not all commercial ginger snaps have a zero-gram listing. The Pepperidge Farm Ginger Man cookies, which I decided were too cute to crush and used for garnish, do show zero grams, as do ginger snaps by Nabisco, which I used in the topping. Archway’s ginger snaps have trans fats; I don’t recall the amount but it was enough to put them back on the shelf. In an ideal world I’d have made the snaps but in my not-ideal world I just didn’t have time.

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Tags: desserts