Pear Crisp

Did your mouth just start watering? Mine did!

This recipe is soooooo yummy.

Picture it: Hot, gooey pears covered in sugar and cinnamon bliss. Cold, velvety vanilla ice cream, beginning to melt as it comes into contact with the hot deliciousness that is pear crisp. Ummmm. Do yourself a favor and make this!

Pear Crisp

Filling:
4 to 5 large pears
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Topping:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup pecans, very finely chopped
1 stick butter(8 tablespoons), melted

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Peel, core, and dice pears. Place into a bowl and stir together with 2/3 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans. Stir together. Drizzle melted butter gradually, stirring with a fork as you go until all combined.
4. Pour pears into a baking dish; top with crumb topping.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
6. Place pan on top rack of oven for an additional 10 minutes, or until topping is golden brown. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

***This recipe can be made the exact same way using apples. Actually, if I have both pears and apples in my fruit bowl, I usually use both! Great!
***I bet you could do this with fresh peaches too! Hmmmm, might have to try that when peaches come in season this summer.

***Okay, if you are still reading you deserve a funny story. I made this dessert this past Friday night when we had some friends over for dinner. I've made this SEVERAL times, so I guess I was getting a bit cocky. At the very end of the cooking time, my crisp was ready except the top wasn't browning as quickly as I wanted it to. Instead of being PATIENT, I went ahead and decided to put the oven on Broil for a few seconds so that my pear crisp would turn nice and golden brown in an instance.

Two minutes later, as I was engrossed in some topic of conversation, this light bulb goes off in my brain that, "Oh yeah, I am about to catch the house on fire!" I ran mid-conversation over to the oven, opened the door, and there stood my pear crisp AFLAME! Yes, in flames.

I quickly shut the door, turned off the oven, and then screamed, "What do I do!?" The men at the table rushed to my aid and took over the fire situation. I was so upset that my dessert was ruined, but being the sweet dinner guest that he was, our friend Jason scraped the charred crisp topping off, insisting it was still delicious and edible. Surprisingly, he was right. Every once in a while we would get a crunchy, charcoal-y bite. But, all in all, it could have been worse!

So, after you do yourself a favor and make this delicious recipe, do yourself ANOTHER favor and don't be impatient as it bakes. Let the crisp do it's thing and don't burn down your house, okay?

This is Casey with your public service announcement for the first week of March.