Pears, Pears and more Pears.....

[Tw1nkle]

My very kind neighbour has given me a bag FULL of Pears - extra ones she has from her tree in her garden!

I have no idea what to do with them, but I need to decide quickly before it's too late!!!

Any ideas please?

Pear crumble is nice

just peel and chop the pears into an ovenproof dish
and make the crumble with 6 oz SR flour, 3 oz Butter and 4oz sugar

do you have a freezer - you could peel and chop them and put them in the freezer for either more pear crumble or other things later

Had chocolate pear crumble at weekend - fab and made chocolate and pear spread last week.

Could you share the chocolate and pear recipes, please? They sound divine.

Stewed pears is nice. Because they are liable to break up easily, you could either make a syrup and poach them, or do them in lemonade (good quality stuff, not 3 bottles for 99p).

Do Belgian Pears

We did a couple of weeks ago and it gets 2 kg of pears into two half-litre bottles!
Didn't simmer for 5 hours as per recipe either. Did about 5 altogether. Could poss have done less.

Make Pear Butter - jam really but easy peasy and very tasty. Let me know if you want the recipe as have to find it!

Choc n'pear crumble;

100g plain flour plus 1 extra tbsp
50g cocoa
100g ground almonds
100g golden caster plus 2 extra tbsp (ordinary will be ok too)
175g butter chilled and diced
50g dark choc chips (or bash up / cut up a choccie bar)
1kg of pears - firm are better

Method;
100g flour, 100g sugar & butter and rub in - by hand or by processor works ok. Will be quite chunky as there's quite a bit of fat there! Fold in the choccy chips.

Peel, core & qtr pears and put into a suitable size dish (about 2 litre). If youy have it squeeze a bit of lemon / use some from a bottle and mix in with pears - stops them browning. Then toss pears with the 1 tbsp flour and 2 tbsp of sugar.

Scatter crumble mix over and bake in oven about 180c with a fan / gas 6 for 35 mins approx - maybe a little more. Top should be quite crisp but not burnt! Leave to cool for at least 15 mins - the difficult bit!

Original recipe (in a You mag) I saw served with chocolate custard but seemed best with vanilla ice cream. Disappears (get it) quite quickly!!

Green & Blacks recipe book - Pear & Chocolate spread (with some slight changes by me).

1.3kg firm pears
750g gran sugar or use preserving as slightly easier
1 orange
1 lemon
250g dark choccie min 60% - chepear stuff seemed better for this

Peel, core & qtr pears. Put into large heavy based pan. Add sugar, finely grate some of the lemon and orange in (or use a finer zester thing for small strips). Then add juice of lemon and orange.

Heat gently so sugar dissolves and bring to a gentle simmer - don't panic there will be enough liquid there as the pears start to cook down. Then take off the heat and allow to cool a little - bash up your chocolate and then add to the 'hot' mix. Don't apnic as the mix will look quite grainy and the chocolate sort of seizes a bit. Put lid on and leave overnight.

Next day put the pan without lid onto stove and bring gently up to the boil - don't whack the full heat up straight away. Bring to boil so its bubbling away nicely for about 40 mins - up to one hour. The temperature needs to reach 105c - or test by putting a small saucer in freezer and test as you would for jam - the mixture when it cools should go thicker and more gelatinous but not super Nutella thick!

When ready put into hot sterilized jars - the kilner type with the spring and rubber seals are good. Doesn't make a huge qty but can be used on pancakes / ice cream / toast (bit runny ish) but very nice.

Enjoy .

Ooh, I was going to start a thread asking about pears when I found this.

Nom nom nom

Thanks for all the replies!!!

I'm not too sure about Pear with Chocolate - sounds a little sickly....???

I'll probably go with Pear crumble.

If I peel and chop them, can I just freeze them then, until I need them?

Can I make the crumble straight from frozen paer chunks then?

Thank you!!!

I assume you can Twinkle

I do that with apples and plums.

then just take them out when you want and shove the crumble on top.

Brilliant!

Thanks everyone!!!

Pear and chocolate is gorgeous....it does seem wrong but it really works well.

Pears Belle Helene is good too, basically a poached pear with choc sauce, you can go as complex or simple as you like with the poaching and the sauce.

Pear and chocolate is a fabulous mix. I'm trying to find the receipe for a pear and chocolate cake I tasted once. Yum. In the meantime:

Pear tart:

Make a caramelised sauce on the hob by mixing water, pear juice and sugar to taste. Careful, gets very hot very quickly and can boil over no warning.

Poach pear slices in boiling water for about a minute.

Lay slices over puff pastry base.

Pour caramel sauce type thing over it

Bake at 180 for about 40 minutes, or until it looks cooked.

Serve with cold custard or cream

I'm making this tomorrow jam, hopefully - was given a sack of pears by a colleague yesterday! I'm going to chop up and freeze a load of them tonight that are in less good nick, and use them for crumbles over winter, but the decent ones are being jammed!