Oven-Roasted Honeyed Pears with Cranberries and Walnuts
I love the simple rustic elegance of this delicious and festive roasted pear dessert.
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Pears and clementines are popular items in Christmas fruit baskets and as stocking-stuffers. Pears come in a couple different varieties, such as Bartlett or Anjou, each with their own unique traits. I’ve taken inspiration from the pear to make this very simple yet elegant holiday dessert. It’s festive, fruity, sweet, and a little bit nutty – I can’t think of a better description for these pears or for the sweet-chaos of the holiday season.
The pears halved and cored, become a vessel for a combination of walnuts and cranberries that are lightly sweetened with brown sugar and honey. Roasting will also sweeten the pears, but that sweetness is tempered by the tart cranberries and earthy walnuts. A drizzle of honey brings all of the flavors and textures together into one perfect Christmas dessert.
We’ve been singing about pears and Christmas for centuries; “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree,” is the first line of the Christmas classic The Twelve Days of Christmas. It seems appropriate, then, to pay homage to the song with a delightful roasted pear dessert that I plan to serve with our Christmas dinner. Oven-roasted honeyed pears with cranberries and walnuts strike a delicious balance between elegant and rustic without being overly sweet, and they look gorgeous on the plate!
Oven-Roasted Honeyed Pears with Cranberries and Walnuts
Ingredients
- 4 pears (Bosc, Bartlett, Anjou)
- 1 cup fresh cranberries
- ¼ cup walnuts, roughly chopped
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- ¼ cup honey
- ¼ cup powdered sugar, for garnish (optional)
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly coat a baking dish or sheet with cooking spray. Set aside.
- Cut the pears in half lengthwise. Gently core the pears with a spoon. Slice a small piece off the backside of the pear so it can lay flat on the baking sheet.
- In a small bowl, toss the cranberries, walnuts, cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar with lemon juice. Scoop a spoonful of the fruit and nut mixture into the cored halves of each pear. Drizzle honey over the top of the filling.
- Bake at 375°F for 25-30 minutes or until the pears are tender. Begin checking for tenderness around 20 minutes.
- Optional: garnish the pears with a light dusting of powdered sugar.
Recipe adapted from This Gal Cooks.