Employee Recipe: Amber’s Cast Iron Skillet Pear & Cherry Betty
Amber K's fragrantly satisfying lemon- and cardamom-scented Cast Iron Skillet Pear & Cherry Sprouted Breadcrumb Betty is a sweet reward when you find yourself with too many pears and cherries, not enough mason jars, and no more room in the fridge!
Servings 8 people
Ingredients
- 3 lbs (1.4 kg) Bartlett pears , peeled, cored, and cut into 1-inch cubes
- 1 cup fresh cherries , pitted and halved
- 1 ½ cups sprouted breadcrumbs , ground fine (use your favourite Silver Hills Bakery bread, see tip)
- ½ cup flour
- 1 cup sprouted breadcrumbs , ground or torn coarsely into roughly ½-inch pieces
- ½ cup + 2 Tbsp brown or demerara sugar , packed (see tip)
- ⅓ cup + 2 Tbsp plant-based butter (Amber used unsalted Dairy-free Becel Plant Butter)
- 1 lemon , zested and juiced
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- 1 tsp ground cardamom
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare pears and cherries, set aside in separate bowls.
- Over medium heat, melt half of the ⅓ cup of plant-based butter in a 10 – 12-inch cast iron skillet. Add 2 tablespoons brown sugar, stir, then add 1 ½ cups fine breadcrumbs. Mix together and toast until deep golden brown, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Remove from skillet and set aside. Wipe any remaining breadcrumbs out of the skillet. Add flour to toasted breadcrumbs and mix well.
- In a medium bowl, toss together pears, lemon juice and zest, cornstarch, remaining brown sugar, cardamom, ginger, and salt.
- Return the skillet to the stovetop over medium-high heat. Melt second half of the ⅓ cup vegan butter in the pan, then sauté the pear mixture 4 – 6 minutes, until sugar dissolves and liquid begins to turn a light gold, stirring often. (If using firmer pears like Bosc or Anjou, sauté a little longer (8 – 12 minutes) until pears begin to soften; reduce heat if needed to avoid scorching the sugar). Remove skillet from the burner.
- Fold cherries into the toasted fine breadcrumb and flour mixture, tossing to coat. Then mix the cherry and breadcrumb mixture in with the pears in the skillet, smoothing the top with your spoon when well combined. Top with coarse breadcrumbs, then dot the top evenly with small pieces of remaining plant-based butter.
- Cover tightly with foil and bake for 20 minutes. (If your skillet is full to the brim, place on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any juice that may bubble over). Remove foil, then bake uncovered for another 12 – 18 minutes, or until coarse breadcrumb topping is golden brown.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool and set for 5 – 10 minutes before serving warm. Top with non-dairy vanilla ice cream. (Also delicious served room temperature or cold!)
Tips
- **Amber saves sprouted bread heels and lonely last slices in the freezer until there’s enough to make breadcrumbs**, so her batch of sprouted breadcrumbs for this recipe were a mixture of [Full Seed Ahead](https://silverhillsbakery.ca/products/full-seed-ahead/), [Squirrelly](https://silverhillsbakery.ca/products/squirrelly-bread/), and [The Big 16](https://silverhillsbakery.ca/products/the-big-16/)—her family’s favourite Silver Hills Bakery breads! (Storage tip: Consolidate your frozen bread heel collection into a single bread or zip top bag to avoid having a freezer cluttered with a dozen mostly empty bread bags!)- **Any golden or brown sugar will do**, but darker varieties like demerara add a deeper, more caramelized flavour to the dish.- **Making this recipe after cherry season?** Fresh cranberries* would be a delightful swap for the fresh cherries in this recipe in early fall while pears are still at their peak. Or try frozen cherries if the price of fresh cherries—or the effort of pitting them—makes you cringe! Dried tart cherries or Craisins are another option that would add zing to this fruity dish (you may wish to use a smaller lemon if making this swap!) - *BC Fruit Fun Fact: British Columbia is Canada’s largest—and the world’s third-largest—producer of cranberries! ( [BC Cranberry Growers’ Association](https://www.bccranberrygrowers.com/industry/) )