Make a Fancypants Holiday Dessert With 5 Ingredients, 20 Minutes
This holiday back-pocket dessert goes out to all you non-bakers, and anyone who’s feeling a bit tuckered from the more elaborate, delayed-gratification baking projects of the holiday season. There is no delaying of gratification here.
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With 5 ingredients and about 20 minutes, you’ll have a pure, joyful dessert that looks festive as all get out, which you will have casually winged together as others clear the table or between rounds of after-dinner charades. Your guests will descend upon it, hungry for a respite from pie and cake and all the holiday heft.
You fancy, huh? (Photo: James Ransom/Food52)
The recipe is Baked Caramel Pears from Lindsey Shere—pastry chef at Chez Panisse for 27 years and the author of the Chez Panisse Desserts—and has a long, but long-dormant pedigree: Florence Fabricant wrote about it in the New York Times in 1993, Marion Cunningham in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1998. Almost two decades later, it’s time we resurrect it.
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Its genius is in harnessing a small amount of butter and sugar to do their good work twice—first, by basting the pears in the oven, coaxing them along as they sweeten and singe.
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In their next act, the butter and sugar pour off into the bottom of the pan, where they form a sticky toffee fond, that you then use as the base of your caramel on the stovetop. “I think it’s very important to have perfectly ripe juicy pears,” Shere told me. “The pear juice is what makes the sauce delicious.”
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Try and say pear peeling 10 times in a row. (Photo: James Ransom/Food52)
It’s much more like cooking than it is like baking. You don’t mix up an unpredictable batter or dough, put it away in an untouchable vessel and wait. Instead, you’re slicing into pears and carving off scraps to taste. You’re popping cold butter and sugar on top and watching it ooze and burble over the sides, brushing it back over the top whenever you feel like it.
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You’re cranking the flame and watching all the gooey dregs bubble until, at just the moment you choose, you dump in cold cream and watch it froth and steam and turn the whole pan of butter and sugar into molten sauce, effectively cleaning the bottom of the pan at once. There’s no part that feels mysterious or distant; every stage is in your control; and the rewards are near-instant. Especially once you set the caramel pears in front of your charade-weary guests.
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Caramel pears are the best kind of pears. (Photo: James Ransom/Food52)
And even though it calls for making caramel, the act is entirely imprecise. I admit, I was intimidated at first too, until I made it 3 times in 2 days. I didn’t have to do that—I just wanted to, and I was drunk on power!
Once, I halved the cream for a thinner, sweeter caramel. Other times, I took the caramel as far as I could, until the sugars crystallized and the butter broke and seeped out. But I just kept cooking, and dripped a little water into the pan while boiling and scraping and stirring, and it emulsified right back together. I break things so you don’t have to!
A caramel’s sweet beginning. (Photo: James Ransom/Food52)
Now, about the Comice pears. Shere recommends them, because they’re tender but don’t turn to mush, and sweet but with an important acidity to balance the rich caramel. The problem is, Comice isn’t always easy to find, unless you (according to my research) are a) near a well-stocked bodega in New York City or b) have recently received a Harry & David gift pack.
But I tried with every other pear I could find, and I can recommend the Bartlett and the d'Anjou (less so the Forelle, and definitely not the Bosc). Former Gourmet Editor Jane Lear also really loves Warrens from Frog Hollow Farm for this.
A caramel’s sweet end. (Photo: James Ransom/Food52)
I can’t help, in 2015, but want to leave the pears unpeeled, to add a pinch of salt to the caramel, to roast the pears a little darker, to take the caramel as intense and toffee-colored as I can. This recipe was published thirty years ago, before our palates were trained to expect those extremes in flavor and texture. By 1993, although caramel was starting to trend, FloFab still felt she had to caution readers: “And no matter how tempting fresh hot caramel may look, tasting or even touching it is dangerous. It is searingly hot and sticks to the skin.”
I was also tempted to rename it in today’s style: Roasted Pears with Caramel and Toasted Almonds, which isn’t technically incorrect. But this recipe is special just as it is, well-loved for decades now, and so Baked Caramel Pears it is.
So long baked apples, baked pears are in now. (Photo: James Ransom/Food52)
Lindsey Shere’s Baked Caramel Pears
Adapted slightly from Chez Panisse Desserts (Random House, 1985)
Serves 6
3 large, very ripe Comice pears (Barlett, D'Anjou, or Warren are good alternatives)
3 tablepoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons sugar
½ cup whipping cream
Pinch of salt, plus more flaky salt to serve (optional)
1 to 2 tablespoons chopped pecans or almonds, lightly toasted
Heat the oven to 375°F. Halve, core, and peel the pears. (Editors Note: A melon baller is a perfect coring tool, and you can leave them unpeeled if you prefer.) Choose a flameproof dish such as an enameled iron one or large ovenproof skillet, and put the pears in it, rounded side down.
Cut the butter into bits and distribute them over the pear halves. Sprinkle with the sugar and put the dish in the oven. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes, basting occasionally with the juices. The pears will be ready if tender when pierced in their thickest part with a sharp knife.
Remove the pears from the dish, allowing all the juice to drain back into it and adding any of the undissolved sugar still remaining in the pear cavities.
Set the dish over high heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture turns a light caramel color. It will look very thick and bubbly, because of the butter and pear juice in it. Pour in the cream and bring to a boil, adding a pinch of salt if you like. Cook until the sauce is smooth. It will darken and turn a rich brown after you pour in the cream.
Serve a warm pear half to each person with some of the sauce spooned over it. Sprinkle with the nuts, and serve with flaky salt on the side, if you like. This is very simple but the flavors of the ripe pears combine wonderfully with the smooth, rich caramel.
By Kristen Miglore.
