Pear Crumble with Oats, Chocolate and Hazelnuts
An easy pear crumble with oats is the ultimate comfort-food. Spoon into its crispy hazelnut topping and enjoy the gooey, melted chocolate mixture with the pears and apples underneath.
Ingredients
Chocolate Hazelnut Crumble
- 75 g (3oz/¾ cup) Ground Hazelnuts
- 50 g (2oz/½ cup) Plain (all purpose) flour
- 75 g (3oz/1 cup) medium oats (porridge oats)
- 2 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
- 100 g (4oz/½ cup) butter unsalted
- 1 good pinch salt (fleur de sel)
- 40 g (1.5oz/¼ cup) soft light brown sugar (cane sugar)
Fruity Filling
- 10 g (0.5oz) unsalted butter slightly softened
- 4 firm to ripe large pears (Williams or Comice) peeled, cored, chopped
- 2 apples (Granny Smith or Golden Delicious) peeled, cored, chopped
- 10 g (2 tsp) vanilla sugar or cane sugar with ½ teaspoon vanilla powder
- 50 g (2oz/¼ cup) dark bittersweet chocolate (min 64%) good quality, in button form or grated
Instructions
- Combine all the crumble ingredients in a large bowl. If mixing by hand, use cold butter and lightly rub through your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Otherwise mix in a food processor. Set aside. At this point the crumble topping can be frozen for up to 2 months in a sealed container.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F (180°C fan/Gas 6).
- Peel, core and chop up the pears and apples roughly into chunks. Melt the butter in a large non-stick frying pan, toss in the fruit chunks and sprinkle over the vanilla sugar. Leave to cook over a medium heat, turning the fruit now and again, for about 5 minutes (no more than 8). The fruit should not be mushy, just lightly cooked. Drain off any excess fruit juice if there is any (set aside and reduce over medium heat to serve apart with the crumble later so that there's no waste).
- Transfer the fruit to a gratin or pudding dish (no need to butter it) and scatter over the dark chocolate. Sprinkle on a generous amount of crumble until the fruit and chocolate are completely covered.
- Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the top is toasted or lightly browned. Leave to cool slightly before serving.
Notes
Serve warm or at room temperature on its own (as the French do). If you prefer, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream, crème fraîche, pouring cream or chai crème anglaise. Excellent served with homemade chestnut ice cream or an adult boozy ice cream such as this non-churn Drambuie ice cream.
Chocolate: Replace the dark chocolate with milk chocolate according to taste.
Although fresh pears are best for this recipe, tinned pears are also great!
Nuts: If you can't find ground hazelnuts, use ground almonds (almond flour) and add a few pecans or walnuts for extra crunch.
Nutrition
Calories: 318kcal
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