Recipe: Baked Pears with Healthy Crumble

To be honest, I can’t survive the work week without a piece of cake, chocolate, biscuit (I could keep going but I am sure you are catching on).  So recipes like this are my compromise; which to me isn't much of a compromise.  Some topical name for desserts like these is "clean eating", “raw desserts”, or “vegan diets”.  Basically they remove many of the processed elements from them.  Like I have said I don't eat like this all the time but do this mainly throughout the week, when I am training, which lets me enjoy some really emazingly sweet treats with my loved ones on the weekend.   


Given I had so many pears ripe at the same time I needed to use them up.  So this recipe is my play on a crumble mixture without the sugar and butter.  Also, by leaving the skin on the pear (compared to poaching pears) you are retaining more nutrients of the fruit which is a double win.  I drizzled mine with honey once it was finished and it was delicious but because there is no butter I would definitely recommend that you add some sort of nut based oil or ground nut to the mixture to elevate the dryness because of the absence of butter.  Alternatively if you don’t want to add some ground almonds or coconut butter some greek yoghurt would be divine!    

The one on the right is using this recipe :)

Ingredients:
1 Pear
¼ cup of rolled oats
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of vanilla essence
¼ cup of coconut (shredded would be best)


Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper;
2. Cut your pear in half and then take the core out.  You can use a melon baller if you have one;
3. Place the pear, cut-side up, on the lined tray;
4. Place the oats, coconut, vanilla and cinnamon in a bowl. Use your fingertips to rub the butter into the oat mixture until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs;
5. Sprinkle the mixture over the pear. Bake for 40 minutes or until crumble is golden and the pear is tender.

Tips:

• I serve mine with some honey on the top so it adds additional sweetness once it has baked so there is no need to add any sugar into the crumble mixture.  
• Serve with greek yoghurt! Divine! 
• By leaving the skin on you are keeping in heaps of the nutrients of the fruit.
• Make sure that your pear is cooked all the way through by placing a knife through it.  It should cut through it with ease.
• You can add coconut butter or a nut based butter to this mixture if you like.