Pear & Chocolate Crumble

I had 3 very ripe pears in my fruit basket, but i do not want to let it go to waste, so with some time searching the internet i found this recipe on the Waitrose. So with some adaptation this is my attempt of a Pear & Chocolate crumble.

I think this is a great pudding, full of different textures, the warm crumble and melted chocolate accompanied  with the cold vanilla ice-cream is delightful! Alternatively, you can leave it to cool, then chill and serve with extra thick cream. 

Time: Approx 50mins

Serves 2

Ingredients:

3-4 Pears, peeled, cored, cubed
1/4 Lemon juice & grated zest
20g Golden caster sugar
50g Plain chocolate, roughly chopped (i used half of dark and half of milk chocolate)

For the crumble

85g Butter, chilled & diced
100g Plain flour
25g  Mixed chopped nuts/chopped hazelnuts
30g Ginger nut biscuits - crushed/crumbed
50g Demera sugar

Method:

1)Preheat the oven to 180C. Place the pears, lemon zest and juice, sugar and 50ml of water in a large pan and heat gently for 10mins or so until the pears are tender.
2)Meanwhile, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir through the chopped nuts, ginger-nut biscuit and sugar.
3)Spoon the pear with a little juice into an ovenproof dish. Scatter over the chocolate, then the crumble mixture, and place on a baking sheet.
4)Bake for 25-30mins until golden. Meanwhile, return the remaining pear juice to the hear, bring it to the boil and reduce by half. Serve the crumble warm with ice cream or chill with extra thick cream and the reduced pear juice.

Note: i went way ahead of myself and mistakenly put the chocolate in with the pear (oh dear!)... but i carried on. So toward the end instead of reducing the pear juice - i reduced the pear & chocolate liquid in to a thick sauce to serve. 

Happy Baking!