Pear And Maple Crumble : Free And Easy Bake-Along #26

It's time for our Bake-Along No. 26, the beginning of our second year of Bake-Along! I would like to thank everyone who has baked along with us in our previous "Bake Along 1st Anniversary Cake". Some of you even baked twice for this special theme! Thank you to all, for making Bake-Along a fun and delicious baking event that we look forward to each time! :o)

What is our bake this time round? Well, Lena has chosen Pear and Maple Crumble from Bon Appetit Desserts cookbook, a wonderful cookbook that is worthy of a place on your bookshelf, if you love to bake!  This is a very thick, heavy book with more than 600 recipes! So far we've tried a few recipes and  all are winners! 

For this crumbles, I've used a mixture of three different pears, one each of ripe Fragrant Pear (not in the photo), Packham Pear and Golden Pear. This recipe seems quite large, so I've only made three-quarters of the recipe using baking dish size 9"x6". I added in some lemon zest, since I only use half a lemon for the juice, I added in the zest as well, do not waste the lemony zest! I do not have pure maple syrup, what I have is maple flavoured syrup. Pure maple syrup is extremely expensive over here. I use salted butter for the crumbles and added in more walnuts. I mixed the flour, sugar and butter for the crumbles with a fork and added in the chopped walnuts, mixing the walnuts in with my fingers. I refrigerated the crumbles for about 15 minutes while I prepare the filling.

I'm really glad that I've used three different pears for the filling. It is very delicious eating the pear filling with three different tastes, yes, all the three pears taste very different from each other, and they are all good. It makes every spoonful interesting, with three different tastes and shades of pears. And I really like the crumbles, adding more walnuts is a very good idea! Walnuts are just perfect for crumbles topping, they are crunchy while still warm and even when the crumbles gets cold, the walnuts taste wonderful even if they are no longer crunchy. And I have used golden raisins for this, and did not use the crystallized ginger, simply because I do not have any in my pantry. I think the addition of crystallized ginger would be really good!

Even though the recipe recommended to eat this pear crumbles with sour cream, I think crumbles goes best with ice-cream! We had this with my homemade mango ice cream. Yummy! Overall, this Pear and Maple Crumbles is delicious! It is not too sweet since I've reduced the sugar slightly and absolutely divine with ice-cream!

Please do visit Lena and Zoe and all our friends who has baked along with us in the linky below.

For our next Bake-Along, we will be baking based on a theme. And the theme is Scones. Have you baked any scones before? If not, then this is the right time for you to do just that. You are free to bake any scones recipes you want.  Please do join us, the linky will start on 26 June right up to 2 July. See you!

Pear and Maple Crumble
(adapted from "Bon Appetit Desserts" by Barbara Fairchild)
Topping
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup walnuts
2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Filling
3-1/2 pounds firm but ripe Anjou pears, peeled, quartered, cored, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup raisins
2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
zest from half a lemon (my addition)
1 tablespoon finely chopped crystallized ginger
sour cream (to serve)

Topping : Combine flour, walnuts, brown sugar, and butter in processor. Using on/off turns, process until walnuts are coarsely chopped and small moist clumps form. Transfer toppig to medium bowl. Cover and chill until firm, about 1 hour.

Filling : Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350F. Place pears, maple syrup, raisins, flour, lemon juice, and ginger in large bowl; toss to coat. Let stand 15 minutes, tossing occasionally.

Transfer pear mixture to 13x9x2-inch baking dish, sprinkle topping over. Bake crumble until pears are tender, juices bubble thickly, and topping is golden and crisp. about 30 minutes. Let stand at least 10 minutes. Serve warm with sour cream.

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