I read a recipe using the pear and ginger combination in Dan Lepard’s Short and Sweet. I wanted to give it a go and came up with this really simple slice. It’s great with some vanilla custard or ice cream and a cup of Assam. I find the Assam is strong enough to cut through the ginger flavour.
Deliciously simple and perfect way to use up soft pears
You’ll need
- 250g self raising flour
- 225g soft unsalted butter
- 80g soft brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 80g hazelnuts
- 2/3 soft and ripe pears – I used conference variety
- 2-3 balls of stem ginger – to your taste
- 2-3 tbsp stem ginger syrup
- icing sugar for dusting
- 1 20cm square baking tin
- To make them
- Preheat the oven to 170C
- Grease and line the baking tin and set aside
- Lightly toast the hazelnuts in a frying pan and set aside to cool
- Cream the butter and sugar together until soft and fluffy
- Add the vanilla bean paste and mix well
- Mix in the flour until all combined
- Roll the dough into a sausage shape and roughly divide into thirds
- Pop one third into the freezer and press the rest into the base of the lined baking tin aiming for a nice even layer
- Peel and core the pears and then slice them so they are a few mm thick
- Lay them over the pastry base
- Chop the stem ginger finely and scatter over the pears
- Pour over the syrup
- Grate the remaining pastry over the top using a coarse grater
- Chop the toasted hazelnuts and fill in any gaps not covered by the pastry
- Bake for 30-40 minutes. The top should be a lovely golden brown
- leave to cool in the tin, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely and then slice as you wish
Easy peasy!
Did you get your pears from Tesco, Sainsburys or the fruit and veg stall? ; )
LOL! One from market. One from Sainsburys Local and one from Sainsburys main superstore in Enfield! They were the ones for the C4 Dispatches research. The softest was sainsburys local. The best value was from market!
I love pear and ginger together, and Assam is my favourite black tea! This is a perfect flavour combination in my books. Is stem ginger like candied ginger? I’m not sure what you mean by 2-3 balls.
Hi. I looked up Candied Ginger on David Liebovitz – http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2008/12/candied-ginger/ and it’s not that. It’s balls of ginger in syrup. In the UK, the product is sold in jars like this – http://www.waitrose.com/shop/ProductView-10317-10001-13996-Waitrose+Chinese+Stem+Ginger+%28in+syrup%29. The balls are a little smaller than a ping pong ball – about 2.5 / 3cm in diameter. Does that help. I do hope you can source them as they are so much lovelier than using raw ginger in this recipe. Urvashi xx
Crazy! I’ve never seen that before. But my sister is coming to visit from the UK this weekend, maybe I can convince her to bring me a jar. Thanks for the info!
i like the idea of pear and ginger too! your suggestion of vanilla custard with it sounds wonderful.
Thank you. I rather like the custard with the ginger stirred in also 🙂