It’s finally feeling like fall here in Oklahoma. Yellow and red leaves are falling from the trees after our first frost and I’ve pulled my boots and coats out of hiding. As usual, Oklahoma weather is unpredictable and tomorrow we’ll enjoy a sunny, 70 degree Thanksgiving. I’m not complaining!
Today, on Thanksgiving eve, I thought I’d share a quick fall dessert in case you’re on the hunt for last-minutes ideas. I’ve been on a stuffed vegetable kick lately (evidence: stuffed tomatoes and stuffed globe zucchini), and Joy the Baker’s peach cobbler for one inspired me to try the concept with fruit. Using a peach halve as a bowl for crispy, buttery goodness—it’s brilliant, right?
These crisps aren’t the prettiest dessert of all but they make up for their humble appearance in flavor. I based the recipe on Heidi Swanson’s recipe for plum and peach crisp recipe. She replaced some of the butter with yogurt in order to reduce the fat content, but I love the yogurt for its tang. I sweetened the dough up with a bit of maple syrup and added some autumn spices. I experimented with two kinds of apples as well as D’Anjou pears. The pears were the clear winner, with Gala apples coming in second. Thicker skinned Granny Smith apples came in last; their skin was still a little tough after baking.
- 4 D’Anjou pears or Gala apples
- Scant 1/2 cup rolled oats
- Scant 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
- 1/4 cup turbinado (raw) sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- pinch of salt
- 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons melted butter
- 2 tablespoons plain or vanilla Greek yogurt
- 2 teaspoons real maple syrup
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease a large baking pan (a 13×9 inch pan would work well).
- Cut the pears and/or apples in half and use a paring knife to carefully cut out the cores. Discard the cores.
- In a medium bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. Use a big spoon to mix it well.
- Scoop about two tablespoons of dough onto each pear/apple half and use your hands to smush it into a mound.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until the top is golden.
P.s. If you’re looking for more easy last-minute Thanksgiving ideas, consider rosemary and parmesan sweet potatoes, chickpea salad (I’m making it for my family), butternut squash orzo risotto, rosemary and feta beer bread biscuits and gala and gorgonzola salad. These pumpkin pancakes would be great for breakfast, too. Hope your holiday is full of laughs and good food!
20 Comments
Oh my, these are gorgeous! Stuffing the fruit is genius, for sure. That Joy really knows what’s up. I love your spin on the recipe!
These really do look yummy, and equally elegant…I can totally see these coming out on a nice silver tray over the Holidays…thank you for sharing!
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I love this idea :D I need to use up some more apples, so this looks perfect. I love that it’s like a stuffed apple, but it’s apple crisp! Pears sound delicious too, I wish I had some. I’ll be trying this with apples for sure though!
Such a cute and yummy looking dessert!
Oklahoma sounds a lot like Washington :]
I think that’s brilliant to put a ‘stuffing’ into fruit!
I follow allyinwondrland and she is such a big fan of your blog that I had to check you out…She’s right! Love your site and recipe!! Thank you. :-)
Glad you found my blog, Peggy! Thanks for commenting. :)
Mmm these sound so yummy!
Yum! Great idea! Love the Greek yogurt and maple syrup combo. Leaves are starting to change here in Texas too. Seems so late to me! There’s already snow on the ground in my hometown. Hope you have a great Thanksgiving Kate!
Love that you did the exploration for me: pears v. apples. Could be the biggest decision of the season. I’m thinking breakfast!
Happy Thanksgiving, Kate! I like the idea to serve these for breakfast. Yum.
yum! these look delicious and beautiful :)
Lovely fall ideas, especialy useful for small gatherings and they could be personalised really easily adding coconut/nuts etc to some and leaving off others.
Beautiful blog, so lovely to find vegetarian inspiration for me thats current and lovely.
Great ideas, Eloise! I hope you’ll try making the pear/apple crisps. Thanks for commenting!
What a super perfect dessert idea! I bet they smell amazing baking too, eh?!
Hope you had a wonderfully warm Thanksgiving, Kate!
I quartered (!!) this recipe and just ate a pear for a snack! Soo yummy! I loved this idea, brilliant :) I’ll make this again but the whole recipe.. I like someone’s idea further up that these would be good to break out at a gathering! Wouldn’t hurt to add some vanilla bean ice cream either :) Thanks for the awesome recipe!
What beautiful food! I can’t wait to try some of these amazing recipes. Your photographs are lovely.
The picture of Cookie on this page, btw, looks very much like a Catahoula (“leopard dog”); maybe part of the mix?
You know, she does look a lot like a catahoula, but she’s so little! She’s just under 20 pounds. The vet guessed party Australian shepherd, but who knows?
I made these tonight and they were delicious!! I sprinkled a little brown sugar on top before baking them, yum! Thanks for sharing!!
Thank you, Leah! Glad you enjoyed the crisps!
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