Pear Streusel Pie

For some reason pear pies are not that popular around our house. Myself, the only way I really love pears is in a pie. Or a crisp. This recipe is kind of a combination of pie and crisp so is definitely one of my favorites. I didn't have any issues getting people to test it out for me. Put streusel on anything and people will be more apt to try it. #TrueStory

We have 2 pear trees in our yard and they yield a huuuuuuuge amount of pears. Every year we scramble to come up with recipes to use them all up. This one will be going on the Make-Every-Year list. Also - this recipe can easily be doubled or tripled!

How do you fancy up your pear pie recipe?

Pear Streusel Pie

Ingredients

Pie

1 pie crust for a 9 inch pie pan

(Our Never Fail Pie Crust Recipe can be found HERE)

7 - 8 large pears, peeled, cored, and sliced

1/3 cup sugar

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

pinch salt

Streusel

1/2 cup butter, cold

1 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 400. 

In a mixing bowl, mix together the sliced pears, sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

Spread in the prepared pie crust. (Note - I like to make sure the pears are piled up in the crust as they shrink down quite a bit during cooking. This means I may end up using up to 10 pears, depending on their size!)

Prepare streusel - In a blender or food processor, pulse together the butter, flour, and brown sugar until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Spread on top of pears.

Place on cookie tray to catch any spillover. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes and then reduce heat to 350 and continue to bake until topping is golden and pears are fork tender, anywhere from 20 - 40 more minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on wire rack. You want to let it cool at least to room temperature before cutting so it doesn't fall apart when you slice it. 

Serve on its own or, even better, with some vanilla ice cream. 

Aaaaaaaaand, of course, a little caramel sauce!

Your guests will love you.

Who can resist? 

I find the texture of the pears goes quite well with the streusel topping - even more so than apples would. Our mom always insists that we add more topping than the recipe calls for so we sometimes 1 and a half times the streusel mixture! There is no such thing as too much streusel, am I right?