Roasted Pears

Fall is pear season (and apple season, and squash season, and anything pumpkin season…!!) but I think the lovely pear too often takes a back seat in the whole fall harvest line up. Pears are delicious! They are high in fibre (more so than apples!) chock full of flavenoids, they are easily digested and low on the allergen scale. What’s not to love?!

There are a myriad of ways to enjoy this virtuous fruit.  Raw pears are lovely chopped or sliced into a salad with slivers of a nice sharp cheese and some toasted nuts (dip slices in a weak lemon water solution to mitigate the browning).  And, of course, who could forget this Honeyed Pear Upside Down Skillet Cake? These brilliant roasted beauties are also lovely chopped onto a salad too, adding a nice balance to a feta and greens combo. They also go well in chia puddings, (another post I am working on!) Pears really are the unsung hero's of autumn!

You will notice this recipe is rather large, and is perfect for a crowd. But with how tasty they are,  I am sure you will agree that more is better and leftovers are always used up in our house! If you do want to cut it down, reduce your ingredients accordingly except the liquid, only take it down to ¾ of the amount. The juices that accumulate in the bottom of the pan make a lovely drizzle, you won't want them to roast dry. 

Roasted Pears

9 Pears (Bosc, Bartlett or Red Bartlett all work well)

3 Tbsp butter, cold if possible, cut into 18 small pieces

1 tsp vanilla or vanilla powder

2 Tbsp coconut sugar (or other sweetener of choice, maple syrup and honey both work well, just drizzle instead of sprinkling)

1 cup liquid (you can get creative here! I usually use water, but have recently also used a nice hard apple ginger cider, but regular cider or apple juice would be lovely too)

Preheat oven to 400F

Cut pears in half lengthwise, and remove core and stem. A melon baller works wonderfully for the core, but I have used a teaspoon in a pinch.

Place pears cut side up in a 10x15 glass pan (or two smaller pans if necessary).  Sprinkle with the vanilla and the coconut sugar. 

Place a small piece of butter into each cavity. Add the liquid to the pan (if using two smaller pans, increase the liquid by ¼ cup for each pan)

Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Remove from oven, and carefully flip the pears so the cut side is now down. Bake for another 20 minutes (at this point check to make sure the pears are soft thru…if your pears are on the firmer side you may need to add 5-10 minutes to the cooking time to cook them thru, you want them to be fork tender.)

Remove from oven and let cool slightly before serving with topping of choice. (we have topped them with whipped coconut cream, vanilla ice cream, this maple custard, or just on their own. )

 

Pears pictured here topped with
a lovely vanilla ice cream and
a drizzle of pan juices 

These pears were roasted with a hard cider,
in a cottage on Lake Seneca for
 a friends birthday. We topped them with
whipped coconut cream and served with a
really fast ginger espresso  meringue-like
 cookie that I winged!

Grain And Gluten Free Honeyed Pear Upside Down Skillet Cake

 A customer of mine gave me a box of pears from her backyard tree last week (have I ever mentioned how much I love my job?) . I think they are Bartlett’s, but I am not quite sure. I do know that they are very tasty though.  I needed to get them used up, so I threw this recipe together this afternoon. The results are definitely worth sharing! The cake to fruit ratio was ideal, and the honey complimented the flavour of the pears perfectly. Pretty enough for company, but easy enough to make any day.
I used my 9 inch cast iron skillet for this cake  (mine measures 9 inches across the bottom on the inside) because it goes easily from the burner to the oven. If you don't have a cast iron pan, you could use a cake pan and transfer the honeyed pears into a cake pan and continue with the recipe, although the cooking time would probably be a wee bit longer. The cast iron's heat holding qualities speed up the baking process being as it goes in the oven hot. (in my last cooking class I talked about seasoning cast iron pans, this link gives a great step by step tutorial. Coconut oil is my "seasoning oil" of choice)

Grain And Gluten Free Honeyed Pear Upside Down Skillet Cake

Fruit layer:

3 cups peeled and thick sliced ripe pears (quartered and then ½’d again)

¼ cup butter (mine was salted)

¼ cup honey

Melt butter over medium heat in the bottom of a 9 inch cast iron pan. Add the pears and honey, and sauté until the butter and honey start to reduce, and the pears just start to soften, about 10-15 minutes. Stir often.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cake Layer:

Measure into a  medium mixing bowl:

3 eggs

2 Tbsp chickpea flour

¼ cup coconut flour

2 Tbsp arrowroot flour

¾ tsp baking soda

Pinch of salt

2 Tbsp coconut oil

2 Tbsp honey

¼ cup kefir

Mix together well with an immersion blender, scraping the sides of the bowl if necessary.  Spoon evenly onto the hot sautéed pears, and carefully place in preheated oven (remember the cast iron pan will be hot!!). Bake for 20 minutes or until edges are starting to brown and top feels firm when pressed.

Run a knife around the edge of the pan, place a large plate over the pan, and invert carefully out on to your plate from the hot pan. Let cool slightly before serving, or serve at room temperature. Store leftovers, if you have any, in the fridge.

Grain Free Pear and Walnut Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Some days, I just need to bake. Today was one of those days. I had a bunch of sour cream that needed to be used up, so I made a batch of sour cream muffins (and apparently they were good…they are all gone!!)  and this Grain Free Coffee Cake. I checked out a bunch of recipes, but none had the combination that I wanted, so this is what I came up with. Definitely a keeper! We tend to like things with not a lot of “sweet” in them, so feel free to adjust the coconut sugar/honey if you like a bit sweeter of a coffee cake. I also included a Rhubarb/Pecan version at the bottom of the page that I made for Mother's Day last year (alas, there are no pictures of it though).

Grain Free Pear and Walnut Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Coffee Cake:

3 eggs

½ cup honey

2 tsp Vanilla

¼ cup coconut oil, melted

¾ cup sour cream

2 cups almond flour/meal

1/3 cup coconut flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

Topping:

2 pears, cored and chopped (any kind would do, mine were D’anjou)

½ cup chopped walnuts

¼ cup coconut sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F

Grease a 10” spring form pan, line bottom with parchment, and grease the parchment too. (I used butter to grease) Set aside.

Mix all of the coffee cake ingredients together in a large mixing bowl with a hand blender until very well incorporated. You want a nice smooth batter. Let it hang out for a few minutes while you put together the topping.

Topping:

Mix the chopped pears ( I didn't peel mine, if using a thicker skinned pear like Bosc, you may want to peel) with the walnuts, coconut sugar and cinnamon.

Scoop the batter  into the prepared pan, smoothing out a bit. Top with the pear/walnut mixture, pushing down into the dough slightly.

Bake in preheated oven for 55 min to an hour, or until set in the middle. Let Cool slightly in pan before removing outer ring, finish cooling on wire cooling rack before slicing.

Rhubarb version:

½ cup org. cane sugar

6 large stalks rhubarb, halved lengthwise and chopped

1 tsp cinnamon

½ cup chopped pecans