OMG Pears again

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It is that time of the year again. The time when my pear tree produces an insane number of pears. Last year the crop was small, about 80 pears. Unfortunately, this year the tree produced more than double that number. 170 pears in total. So I need a way to use them up.

Previous years I’ve made pear bread which is super tasty.This year I made 2 large loaves and 4 small loaves or bread, which took a total of a dozen pears. I cored, peeled, and froze 70 more.

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Then I made a pear tart which used up 6 more pears. In truth, that I made is closer to a galette because the sides are not fluted but just folded over. Unlike this apple galette recipe though I chose to make less flaky more tart like crust.

There are lots of fruit desserts that one can make. This is a godsend for me because I often struggle with making pie crust. When I don’t feel like I’m up for the pie crust battle, I typically make another type of baked fruit dessert. One of the best places that describes different types of fruit desserts is Gourmet’s article on the cobbler family. In addition to the ones described here there are also

• rustic tarts
• tarts
• turnovers
• strudel

Ironically, tart crust which uses butter, egg and sugar is much easier for me to make than pie crust. So if time isn’t an issue I’ll often make a tart. If time is a factor I fall back on crisps because they just are very delicious. They also work really well with frozen fruit, which often doesn’t work so well for pies or tart, the exception of course being pies or tarts made with berries.

I’ve still got nearly a dozen pears left that I need so use. So I’m scouting out other recipes. If I had the equipment to can I’d consider making and applesauce that was a mix of pears and apples. Instead I’ve been looking at pear oatmeal cookies as a possibility because they’ll be easy to store and save to take with me when I go see my family.