08/11/2026
🍐 A TABLE FULL OF PEAR FAVORITES
Ripe pears have a soft sweetness that seems made for old-fashioned baking. Once the fruit bowl started filling up, there was always a reason to make a spiced loaf for breakfast, a crumb-topped pie for supper, or a warm crisp to serve while the coffee was still hot.
This collection features brown sugar pear upside-down cake, farmhouse pear crumb pie, cinnamon pear muffins, old-fashioned pear spice loaf, creamy pear custard cake, and brown sugar pear oat crisp.
Here are all six recipes to keep together.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BROWN SUGAR PEAR UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Makes 10 servings
Pear layer:
• 4 tablespoons melted butter
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• 3 ripe but firm pears
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
Cake:
• 1½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ cup softened butter
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup sour cream
• ¼ cup whole milk
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan.
3. Pour the melted butter into the bottom.
4. Sprinkle with brown sugar.
5. Peel, core, and slice the pears.
6. Arrange the pear slices over the sugar.
7. Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg.
8. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
9. Beat the butter and granulated sugar until creamy.
10. Add the eggs one at a time.
11. Add the vanilla and sour cream.
12. Add half of the dry ingredients.
13. Add the milk.
14. Add the remaining dry ingredients.
15. Spread the batter carefully over the pears.
16. Bake for 38–45 minutes.
17. Cool for 10 minutes.
18. Run a knife around the edge.
19. Carefully invert onto a serving plate.
20. Serve warm or at room temperature.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
FARMHOUSE PEAR CRUMB PIE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Makes 8 servings
Pie:
• 1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust
• 6 cups sliced pears
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup packed brown sugar
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• Pinch of salt
Crumb topping:
• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup packed brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons cold butter
• ½ cup chopped pecans, optional
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. Fit the crust into a pie plate.
3. Combine the pears with both sugars.
4. Add the flour and cornstarch.
5. Add the lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and salt.
6. Toss gently.
7. Spoon into the pie crust.
8. Mix the topping flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt.
9. Cut in the cold butter.
10. Add pecans if desired.
11. Sprinkle over the pears.
12. Bake for 45–55 minutes.
13. Cover the crust edges if they brown too quickly.
14. Remove when bubbling and golden.
15. Cool for at least 2 hours.
16. Cut into wedges.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CINNAMON PEAR MUFFINS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Makes 12 muffins
Muffins:
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• ½ cup melted butter
• ¾ cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups diced pears
• 1 tablespoon flour
Streusel:
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• ⅓ cup packed brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons cold butter
• ¼ cup chopped pecans, optional
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. Line a muffin pan.
3. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
4. Whisk the brown sugar and eggs.
5. Add the melted butter, sour cream, and vanilla.
6. Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients.
7. Toss the pears with 1 tablespoon flour.
8. Fold them into the batter.
9. Divide among the muffin cups.
10. Mix the streusel flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon.
11. Cut in the cold butter.
12. Add pecans if desired.
13. Sprinkle over the muffins.
14. Bake for 19–23 minutes.
15. Cool for 5 minutes.
16. Transfer to a wire rack.
17. Serve warm or at room temperature.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
OLD-FASHIONED PEAR SPICE LOAF
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Makes about 10 slices
Ingredients:
• 1¾ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1½ teaspoons cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• ½ cup softened butter
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• ½ cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups diced pears
• ½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts, optional
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar for topping
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon for topping
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Grease and line a 9×5-inch loaf pan.
3. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices.
4. Beat the butter with both sugars.
5. Add the eggs one at a time.
6. Add the sour cream and vanilla.
7. Stir in the dry ingredients.
8. Fold in the pears.
9. Add nuts if desired.
10. Spread in the loaf pan.
11. Mix the topping brown sugar and cinnamon.
12. Sprinkle over the batter.
13. Bake for 50–60 minutes.
14. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
15. Transfer to a rack.
16. Cool before slicing.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CREAMY PEAR CUSTARD CAKE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Makes 10 servings
Ingredients:
• 4 ripe but firm pears
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 3 large eggs
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup whole milk
• ½ cup heavy cream
• 4 tablespoons melted butter
• 2 tablespoons coarse sugar
• Powdered sugar, optional
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Butter a 9-inch springform or deep cake pan.
3. Peel, core, and thinly slice the pears.
4. Arrange half of the pears in the pan.
5. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.
6. Beat the eggs and sugar for 2–3 minutes.
7. Add the vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
8. Whisk in the flour mixture.
9. Slowly add the milk and cream.
10. Add the melted butter.
11. Pour half of the batter over the pears.
12. Add the remaining pear slices.
13. Pour over the remaining batter.
14. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.
15. Bake for 45–55 minutes.
16. Cool for at least 30 minutes.
17. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.
18. Slice and serve.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BROWN SUGAR PEAR OAT CRISP
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Makes 8 servings
Filling:
• 7 cups sliced pears
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup packed brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• Pinch of salt
Oat topping:
• 1 cup old-fashioned oats
• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup cold butter
• ½ cup chopped pecans, optional
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. Butter a 9-inch square baking dish.
3. Toss the pears with both sugars.
4. Add the flour, lemon juice, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
5. Spread in the baking dish.
6. Mix the oats, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt.
7. Cut in the cold butter.
8. Add pecans if desired.
9. Sprinkle over the pear filling.
10. Bake for 35–45 minutes.
11. Remove when bubbling and golden.
12. Let rest for 15 minutes.
13. Spoon into bowls.
14. Serve warm.
Pears, cinnamon, brown sugar, butter, oats, vanilla, and warm spices make this collection taste like the gentlest days of harvest season.
Which pear recipe belongs on your family table first?
Save all six recipes for pear season, Sunday baking, family potlucks, and cozy homemade desserts.
