DINNER AT OUR HOUSE: Easy Fruit Dessert
We were making dinner last night and wanted a quick and easy dessert using our beautiful Italian Morettini Pears, created in Florence, Italy, in 1956, that we picked up from KJ Orchards. This is the same fruit that they use at The French Laundry and many San Francisco restaurants. You can find KJ Orchards at the San Francisco Ferry Building Farmers Market and other locations around northern California.
The first idea that came to our minds was a pear crumble, but we were out of oats, so we decided to skip the crust and add a frangipane topping instead. It only uses a few ingredients, including almond flour, and highlights the fruit. Often you'll find frangipane in a frangipane tart accompanied by a flaky pastry crust, but since we wanted a quick and easy dessert, we just greased the pan, sliced the pears, and poured in the fluffy almond topping before baking the topping to a golden brown. It's that simple!
You could use other fruit instead of pears. Stonefruit would be wonderful! We don't crave super sweet pastries, and our pears were already sweet, so what we made had less sugar and let the pears shine.
A pear frangipane would be perfect with coffee for breakfast or serve with whipped cream or vanilla bean ice cream for dessert.