Want to know the secret with pears? You’ve got to give them a little bit of love and attention. They aren’t quite as easy as apples. Nobody wants to bite into an unripe pear. Fortunately, today we have come up with a list of 24 pear desserts, most of which don’t need your pears to be ripe. Provided you give your dish a little bit of care, you’ll be creating utterly heavenly desserts. Read on to find out more!
Homemade Pear Desserts
1. Pear Custard Pie
This is one of our favorites, so we thought we had better include it early on. Imagine a dish stuffed with sweet and oozy pears, surrounded by a firm layer of sweet and delicious baked vanilla custard… You aren’t going to have to imagine it, as you can make this pear custard pie recipe really easily at home. This recipe doesn’t have a crust either, so there is no messing about with butter and flour. It is really easy to make. Just add sliced pears to a baking dish and then pour in a simple custard mix. From there, it is just a case of baking until the custard has set.
2. Easy Pear Crisp
Three words, easy, pear, crisp… that pretty much sums up this fabulous easy dessert you can make at home. We love to make this one around fall as it is absolutely packed with warm and sweet spices. This is a sort of crumble. The reason it is so easy is that we cheat quite a bit when we make the topping. No breadcrumbs here! Instead, we use a mix of crumbly pecans, rolled oats, and more than a little butter to get it all sweet and salty at the same time. Please don’t forget the pecans, as these are what make the recipe (aside from the pears, obviously). As they toast, they take on a real savory taste and add a lot of crunch!
3. Pear Brown Betty
This is a recipe that once again features the pears’ best friends… Butter and brown sugar! All wrapped in a crisp shortcrust! You’ve probably had an apple brown betty. We would argue that this one is even better than the original! Don’t tell anyone, but we’ve had this one for breakfast for years!
4. Pears Poached in Red Wine
Ah, a classic. Poached pears are amazing. We love to serve them with a large dollop of plain old vanilla ice cream. There’s something about the hot and cold that really works so well! As an aside, the pears soak up all of that lovely red wine and produce a really vivid red color.
Whatever you do, don’t waste expensive red wine on this recipe. We’ve tried it with the cheap stuff, and it tastes just as good. Oh, and don’t worry about it being an ‘adults’ dessert. The alcohol in the wine burns off as you are poaching to be enjoyed by all family members. This is a great dessert if you want to enjoy your pears, but they aren’t quite ripe yet. The poaching process causes the pears to sweeten and soften too.
5. Easy Pear Muffins
Morning, noon, or night, these little muffins are just the right size to give you a fruity carb boost. We love to top ours with a kind of streusel mix made out of coconut sugar, chopped nuts, and a little butter! This is optional… Yeah, right.
6. Maple Vanilla Baked Pears
Do you know what we love more than tasty desserts? Tasty desserts that are really simple too! With only 4 ingredients, it is hard to think of why you wouldn’t make this dessert! All you do is cut the pears in half, scoop out the seeds and then fill the center with a mixture of maple syrup, cinnamon, and vanilla. From there, place them on a baking sheet and roast them in a hot oven for around 25 minutes. If you want to create a crunchy top, add a spoonful of crushed nuts and rolled oats.
It really is this simple. The pears act as a little bowl for the maple syrup, and as they cook, they suck all that sweetness into their flesh. Just watch your mouth when you take a bite, as they can be seriously hot. (That’s our excuse for the pile of ice cream on the side, and we are sticking to it!)
7. Pear Cake with cream topping
This one is great to serve hot or cold. The cake is a little bit denser than we are used to and is really filling. Our favorite to serve with this is lashings of yellow vanilla custard, but it also works really well on its own. We like to dot our cake mixture with some chopped nuts, so every now and again, you get a delicious crunch!
8. Italian Pear Cake
For such an impressive dish, we find that it has relatively few ingredients. Whenever we make this, we are taken to a world of frothy coffees, piazzas, and beautiful people. Not bad for a cake! To truly shine, this recipe relies on the pears being slightly ripe. If they aren’t, put them in a bag with a banana for half a day, and they should soften up nicely. We make a smooth batter to surround layers of tasty pears. This is made out of a mixture of eggs, sugar, and lashings of creamy mascarpone. It actually reminds us a little of a baked cheesecake without the pastry.
9. Pear Upside Down Cake
Why make a normal cake when you can make an upside-down pear cake? Well, the reason is actually that it is so much easier. This is so simple. Just pour your batter into a cake tin, top with a layer of pears and then bake until it is golden brown and perfect! You’ll be left with a moist sponge topped with golden and slightly caramelized pears. We love this recipe because as the pears cook, they release their juices that flow down into the base, making it super juicy, sweet, and delicious. A top tip with this recipe is to make sure you include baking soda. This bubbles and reacts with the acid of the pears to give you a really light and airy sponge!
10. Spiced Almond Pear Cake
We aren’t sure why, but almonds always seem to work really well with pears. Here’s a perfect case in point. This cake isn’t as light as some, but it is absolutely packed with flavor! This goes so well with a coffee in the afternoon! There are a fair few ingredients. This is one to make on a rainy day when you’ve got plenty of time (and a couple of bored kids). We love to stuff our cake full of autumnal spices.
11. Pear Turnover
Ok, this just might be one of our favorites! These are absolutely unreal when served hot out of the oven alongside a big old scoop of ice cream. That said, these little parcels are also great as ‘hand pies’, so if you are looking for food on the go, they work great for breakfasts too (just mind the crumbs). The key to getting a golden-brown pastry crust is twofold.
First, make sure that your oven is hot enough. Second, give each turnover a little brush with some melted butter or egg wash. As they bake, they will turn brown and delicious. Sometimes the pear juice bubbles out and makes a little caramelized topping, which we just love! A crispy crust that gives way to a juicy fruit filling full of sweet spices? Amazing!
12. Apple and Pear Crumble
Do you know what is better than apple crumble? Apple and pear crumble! This is an easy dessert that can be whipped up in minutes and then left to its own devices in the oven. It is great for dinner parties as you can spend time entertaining instead of being stood over a hot stove! We have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like crumble. The key to making this recipe shine lies in the topping.
We don’t just use a boring crumb mix either. This is seriously special. We top with rolled oats and add a few crumbled almonds in for good measure (and when we say a few… We mean a lot!). We mix the topping with butter too. This ensures that the top turns golden brown every time!
13. Caramel Pear Pudding
Holy smokes, our teeth hurt just looking at this recipe. If you are on a diet, you won’t want to see this! In fact, blow the diet and make it. It’s amazing. There are pears, brown sugar, and butter. Forget the calories. This one is all about taste! Make sure to include a generous blob of ice cream too!
14. Apple Pear Cupcakes
Who doesn’t love a cupcake? These cutesy little cakes will make you everyone’s favorite (until they run out, that is). The apple and the pear in the recipe release their juices into the batter, so these are super sweet, moist, and utterly heavenly. You can glaze them with simple powder sugar icing, but we like to add a spoon of cinnamon to really bring out the flavors of the pears.
15. Chocolate Pear Cakes
Ever had chocolate and pears before? If not, you are in for a real treat with this recipe. Chocolate and fruit often work really well together. This is a really moist and chewy chocolate sponge with a fruit center. As the pears cook, they break down and form a kind of warm fruit compote, running through the entire dish. We love to serve this with a hearty pouring of heavy cream.
16. Toffee Coated Pears
Ever had a toffee apple? Well, this is the next best thing. Provided you are careful, you can avoid sticky fingers, but that is half the fun. This one is really simple to make and needs only 4 ingredients. Make sure your pears are ripe too! This does involve hot sugar, so it is one to make for the kids, but maybe not with them! Skewer your pears with a popsicle stick, turn in a pan of boiling caramel and then allow to cool!
17. Pear Coffee Cake
Coffee cake always makes us smile as it doesn’t contain any coffee! But it does go rather well with a steaming cup of joe. The bitterness of the coffee is really offset with a mouthful of soft and sweet pair, lovingly encased in a soft and moist sponge. This crumbly cake is amazing, and it is made in one pan, so less washing up!
18. Easy Pear Tart
The name says it all. If you don’t want the hassle of messing around with pastry, this is for you. We cheat a little by using store-bought puff pastry. From there, it is simply a case of cutting a circle, artistically arranging some pear slices, and topping with a layer of sugar and a few spices (namely cinnamon). This keeps for a few days too… Not that it will last that long!
19. Caramelized Pears
As desserts go, this might be the simplest ever. We roast pears in a mixture of butter, sugar, and just a little bourbon. Then some magic happens in the oven. The center of each pear wedge turns all sweet and soft, the edges toast and caramelize slightly, turning golden brown and crisp. Eat them on their own or serve with ice cream!
20. Pear Clafoutis
Pear, what? Clafoutis… It’s pronounced ‘clah – foo – tee’, and it is even harder to say when you’ve got a mouthful of this amazing dessert. It might sound Greek, but it is French, and you will already know that the French are masters at making desserts.! It’s a layered dessert consisting of a mixture of soft and sweet pears, custard, and a puffy golden top.
21. Pear Crumble Bars
We love finger food, and these little bars are the perfect size and shape to hide in the corner of a lunch box. We love to top them with a layer of salted caramel sauce, and the hardest part about this recipe is waiting for them to cool enough to eat them! It features the usual suspects when it comes to ingredients—butter, sugar, and almonds.
22. Caramel Pear Cookies
It’s not often that you see fruit cookies, and no raisins don’t count! Because pears are slightly firmer than other fruits, they make the ideal filling for these chewy and slightly salty cookies. When baking, be sure to leave enough room for your cookie dough to spread, and don’t overbake them. Chewy is good!
23. Pear Cake and Cinnamon
This isn’t just any cinnamon topping, oh no. We top this delicious cake with a layer of cinnamon sugar. As it bakes, it slowly bubbles and turns into a sort of cinnamon toffee. If that sounds like it would be divine with a pear cake, you’d be exactly right. This one is a firm favorite in our house!
24. Pear Cobbler
Here’s why we love a cobbler, it seems the messier the presentation, the better it tastes! You can literally throw this one together in a matter of minutes, bang it in the oven and come back to a kitchen that smells amazing! This features quite a few spices such as cinnamon and even ginger! A real winter warmer!
Conclusion
You’ll find some common elements in our list of 24 pear desserts. Make sure you’ve got a few winter spices to hand, along with plenty of butter and sugar, and you should be able to make most of the above. Which is your favorite? Let us know in the comments.
