KP+: Pear Bars
A slice of autumn
October is here and freshly picked pears and apples will be making their way to our tables. Sure, I appreciate a cold-storage pear - hardy, mature, impressively unaged and available to us anytime of the year, but nothing hits like eating a juicy pear in a cosy jumper.
So, a new year, a new pear recipe. It turns out that every single year, around this time, I attempt to combine orchard fruits with shortbread. In 2021 (ok, weirdly this was in Spring but it was lockdown ok we were all confused) it was apple butter millionaire’s shortbread, in 2023 we had sticky pear ginger shortbreads (2022 appears to be a fallow year), while 2024 was the year of apple butter thins. This year we’re back with a variant that puts juicy, poached pears at the forefront. Somewhere between a frangipane tart and a classic shortbread bar, it hits all the autumnal notes in a gorgeous, transportable form.
Plus, if lining tarts stresses you out, this is the ideal half-way place between fancy and easy. Once sliced into elegant rectangles, it looks as fancy as any tart. You could certainly make this in an 8inch round tin, or any shape!
This recipe is also a good lesson in re-purposing and re-marrying recipes you already love. I’ve adjusted my classic semolina shortbread recipe in SIFT for the base, adding in a little wholemeal flour and a bunch of spices just to give it that warming touch.
The frangipane is the classic recipe that is in SIFT but using brown butter to help give an overall warming flavour. I’ve also mostly swapped the almonds for oats - about 75% oat to 25% almond. If you are adverse to almond, do all oats. Equally, if you love a sticky almondy richness, you can use all almonds. I tested both and I can’t believe how easy going frangipane is! If you don’t feel like browning butter then just go for regular, but perhaps swap the caster sugar for light brown - nice to have some depth in that layer if possible.
The pears are poached, classically then cooled, dried-off and sliced. You want these to be about 1cm thick, length wise, keeping the tip together so you can easily place them over the frangipane layer. No gaps! Brushing with a little melted butter before baking is nice but not essential.
As the bar bakes (more on that in a sec), we reduce the pear poaching liquid til syruppy - you know it’s ready when it is basically all bubbles and bare liquid underneath. It should be as thick as golden syrup or rich honey once cool.
You actually want to glaze the pear bar once cooled. Hot bar and hot syrup = where did all my glaze go? Cool bar + cool syrup = challenging to glaze. Cool bar + just-warm syrup = wow, so shiny!!! For it to look its best if you’re making in advance, you may need to reglaze, or just wait to glaze close to when you are serving and leaving at room temp.
