[food] smitten kitchen's vanilla browned butter pear crumbles

[kaberett]

(Which Deb calls "crisps", which are, obviously, a different thing.)

This recipe was originally posted waaay back in 2007, before I started reading smitten kitchen, and I actually first came across it when I was investigating fennel seed ice cream, which was in turn because I was looking for things to do with fennel. Deb updated it substantially in 2020, and almost all of it is now provided in sensible units, but as usual we prefer things with rather less sugar and more importantly I have to look up what 2/3 of a cup of whole almonds corresponds to in terms of weight every single time. Which turns out to be often enough for me to type this up for my own reference.

(This latest batch was half pear and half rhubarb for the filling, but alas I am once again underwhelmed by rhubarb even though it does go very well with the fennel ice cream.)

Quantity Deb does double this quantity (well, still one vanilla bean) and reckons it makes 6-7 6oz ramekins. I reckon the halved quantity does five 8oz (the big ones, self) ramekins.

Ingredients
1 vanilla bean
170g unsalted butter

700g pears, peeled, cored, & cut into 1cm dice
~2 tbsp lemon juice (completely optional)
1½ tbsp of sugar in all, mix of white and (light) brown
½ tbsp plain flour
pinch of salt

100g plain flour
50g nuts (original recipe calls for almonds; I like hazelnuts; pre-ground is fine)
3 tbsp sugar, mix of white and brown to taste
pinch of salt

Method

1. Preheat oven to 220 °C.
2. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise, scrape out the seeds, and place both pod and seeds in a wide, heavy-bottomed pan with the butter. Heat gently, stirring occasionally, until the butter has browned.
3. Meanwhile, prepare the pears. Optionally, toss the chunks of pear in lemon juice to keep them from oxidising.
4. When the butter is ready, abstract ~50ml of it to a small container, leaving the rest -- and the vanilla bean -- in the pan.
5. Add sugar and a pinch of salt to the butter in the pan, stir to combine, then add the pears. Cook over medium heat until the pears have begun to soften and are slightly less opaque but are not cooked all the way through -- up to about 10 minutes. Then remove the vanilla pod*, add the flour, stir to combine, and transfer to baking vessel(s).
6. While the pear is cooking, prepare the topping: pulse together all the ingredients except the butter into a food processor until you've got an even texture. Then add the reserved butter and pulse again.** Distribute this mixture over the top of the fruit in your baking vessel(s) -- if you squish handfuls of it it will stick together a bit.
7. Bake until nicely browned and thoroughly squidgy on the inside -- we tend to aim to give ramekins 15 minutes but they're absolutely fine after 20.

Goes extremely well with the fennel seed ice cream Deb recommends (though as discussed elsewhere I significantly up the fennel). We are experimenting this time around with baking them two ramekins at a time, and storing the rest of the filling & topping in airtight containers in the fridge until needed -- I will attempt to remember to update on how this works.

* We are experimentally doing the thing recommended elsewhere (book review to follow at... some point) of rinsing the vanilla pod, leaving it to dry for 24 hours, and then sticking it into a 3/4 full bottle of vodka. We will gradually add more vanilla pods as we use them, and apparently will end up with vanilla essence...
** I am not wholly convinced by this -- I think the topping still winds up on the decidedly dry and powdery side. More experimentation to follow...