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Pear & Blackberry Crumbles

Use pear instead of apple in these individual versions of the classic pud with a crunchy pistachio topping

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pear and butter match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 577 recipes mention both. Both carry anethole, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep10 min
Cook35 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Heat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Put the peeled, cubed pears in a baking dish and toss them with the golden granulated sugar.

  2. Scatter the blackberries over the pears and spread everything into an even layer.

  3. Put the flour in a bowl and rub in the cold butter with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs.

  4. Stir the demerara sugar and chopped pistachios into the crumble mixture.

  5. Scatter the crumble topping evenly over the fruit, leaving it loose rather than pressed down.

  6. Bake for about 35 minutes until the topping is golden and the fruit is bubbling around the edges.

  7. Leave to cool for about 5 minutes, then spoon into bowls and serve warm, with ice cream if using.

By bbcgoodfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pear + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  2. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + pistachiotop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together478 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + buttertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the pistachio

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pear, sugar, flour, butter, cream):

  1. Almondbetter flavor fit
  2. Hazelnutabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Chestnutabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Pistachiothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, sugar, flour, butter, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).