Baked Pear With An Oatmeal And Maple Cookie Crust

We received some pears in our Good Food Box this month and, since I had also recently received a gift of maple syrup from a friend, I decided to put the two ingredients together.  I often bake apples with an oatmeal streusel topping so I decided to do the same thing with the pears.  I wanted to make my usual streusel recipe, but to make it with maple syrup instead.

I initially named described the dish as baked pears with an oatmeal, maple syrup, and cinnamon streusel but, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that the description was inaccurate.  True, I did make the topping using the proportions I use for all of my oatmeal streusels, but a streusel is a crumble topping and the topping on these pears is not.  When I substituted maple syrup for the brown sugar I usually use, it changed the streusel into a batter and, when the batter was baked, it formed a cookie crust on top of the fruit. 

No matter.  Whatever you call it, it still tastes good.

I used one pear to make dessert for the two of us.  If you want to make more servings, just increase the ingredients proportionately.

To make a Baked Pear With Oatmeal Maple Cookie Crust, you’ll need:

• 1 pear
• 1/4 cup oatmeal
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 Tablespoons cold butter, cut into slices
• 1/4 cup maple syrup

Mix the oatmeal, flour, and cinnamon together.  Use your fingers to work the butter into the flour mixture until it breaks down into small flakes.  The resulting mixture should look something like this:

Stir in the maple syrup.

Cut the pear in half and remove the center part where the seeds are, the blossom end at the bottom of the pear, and the stringy bits in the middle.  ( I use a small melon scoop to do this.  It works very well.)  Cut a little slice off of the peel side of each pear half so that they will sit cut side up without wobbling.  Place them on a flat pan that has been buttered or lined with parchment paper.

Spread the topping over the two prepared pear halves.

Bake the pear halves at 350ºF for about 30 minutes, until the pear skin can be pierced easily with a fork.   

Allow the pear to cool for 5 or 10 minutes before serving.  Vanilla yogurt or ice cream would make a nice accompaniment.