This blackberry pear crisp is one of my favorite crisps of all time. The firm and crisp texture of subtly sweet Bosc pears alongside the sweet pop of fresh blackberries combine with a slightly peppery hint from fresh ginger. Covered in a buttery and crispy topping, this dessert hits all the right notes in flavors and textures.
While this can be made any time of the year, this blackberry and pear crisp is one of my favorite fruit crisps for fall desserts. While apples usually get all the love, especially in fall baking, pears are also great. Like apples, they also pair well with different berries. This is why my cranberry pear crumble pie has become a family favorite Thanksgiving tradition since 2018.
A good pear blackberry crisp recipe has layers of flavors, and while sweet, the sweetness is subtly different yet balanced between the different ingredients. Ranging from sweet, smokey, honeyed, peppery, tart, buttery, and spicy, every bite has a pop of flavors. The mixture of pears and blackberries also provides a nice contrast in textures.
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🥘 Ingredients for Blackberry Pear Crisp
Other than the fruits and maybe oats, most of the ingredients for a blackberry and pear crisp you may already have on hand.
Fruit Layer
Blackberries – Use one large container of blackberries, which is typically sold in about a 12-ounce package. This should give you a little over 2 cups worth.
Pears – I highly prefer Bosc pears for most baking applications. Red or green Anjou pears also work. These pears hold their shapes best when baked. You could also use Bartlett, but they will be much softer in texture. I use about 4-5 pears here, or roughly 5 cups worth when largely diced.
Ginger – A bit of minced fresh ginger here gives a nice pop of flavor and balances some of the sweetness. If you’re not a fan, simply omit it. Do not substitute with ground ginger though. If you want to use ground ginger instead of fresh, swap it with the cinnamon in the topping.
Lemon – Some fresh lemon juice adds a bit of acidity to brighten up the flavors in the fruits. This also helps to keep the pears from browning after being cut. A lot of times I would use the zest also, but here I find it takes away from the ginger. It also adds a bit too much of a lemon flavor that doesn’t let the blackberries shine as much.
Sugar – Toss the fruit with some brown sugar. Alternatively, you can swap the sugar with some maple syrup as well which also gives a nice flavor.
Thickener – I like to also toss the fruits with a bit of tapioca starch to thicken the juices they release. I prefer tapioca starch because it leaves a slightly cleaner look to the baked dessert, but you can also use corn starch instead, or just flour.
Crisp Topping
Flour – For the base of the crisp, use all-purpose flour.
Sugar – Brown sugar goes best here.
Butter – Cold, unsalted (or salted) butter is used in the crisp topping. Cutting the butter into the flour and sugar allows it to melt while baking and turn the topping nice and crispy.
Cinnamon – Optional but adds a nice flavor to almost any crisp recipe.
Oats – While you can make a crisp without oats, oats are what mostly separate a crisp from a streusel or crumb. Use whole oats or old-fashioned oats for the best texture.
🍐 Best Pears for a Pear Crisp
Like apples, pears come in a lot of varieties, and some are best for snacking raw, while others hold their shape well when exposed to high heat. Some varieties are great for baking in recipes where you want them to kind of fall apart under the heat as well. Check for ripeness by applying a bit of pressure on the neck or near the stem of the pear. When ripe, the flesh should give slightly underneath the skin.
Another thing to keep in mind when it comes to ripeness is that some pears do better fully ripe or slightly under ripened. This will also depend on how you plan to use the pear. Bartlett pears are very juicy when ripe, but also break down more easily under heat, so for baking you may want to use them when they’re not quite fully ripe. Bosc pears hold their shape very well under heat, but can have less flavor when not fully ripe, so use them when fully ripened.
My favorite choices for baking pears are Bosc and Anjou. Bartlett pears that aren’t fully ripe are good as well but will be noticeably softer. Other decent options include Concorde, Seckel, and Forelle pears.
Comice and Asian pears are better eaten raw or tossed into salads.
🔪 How to Make Blackberry and Pear Crisp
Crisps are quick and easy to make because you only need two bowls and a baking dish. Combine fruit layer in one bowl and topping in the other, then combine and bake.
Preheat your oven to 350°F / 180°C.
In a mixing bowl add the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and oats and mix. Cut the cold butter into the mixture with a pastry blender or fork until you have small pieces of butter fully mixed throughout. Set it aside.
In another mixing bowl, add the washed and dried blackberries, the chopped pears, lemon juice, sugar, grated ginger, and tapioca starch. Stir gently to combine.
Spread the fruit mixture evenly into a 13x9 baking dish. Now cover it with the oat topping, trying to get full and even coverage across the dish.
Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 40-45 minutes until the fruit is bubbling around the edges and the topping is golden brown.
Remove the blackberry pear crisp from the oven and let it cool for at least 15 minutes or so before serving. It will continue to thicken as it cools. Serve warm or at room temperature, topped with ice cream for the best experience.
🥧 Difference in Cobbler vs Crumble vs Crisp
All these desserts have a few things in common, and are a two-layer, baked dessert. They typically consist of a bottom layer of firm fruits, stone fruits, or berries. The top layer is what makes them each different, varying from biscuits to dough to batters to streusel like layers. Another thing they all have in common is that a scoop of vanilla ice cream is a perfect finishing touch.
Cobblers
Cobblers are the oldest and most well-known of these desserts, with recipes dating back to the 1800s. What is considered a “cobbler” and the recipes for them have changed over time, but the topping is typically made with small, round biscuits that give the top a cobblestone shape, hence the name.
Fruit is layered on the bottom of a baking dish and topped with biscuit dough. As it cooks, the fruit breaks down and thickens, while the biscuit top becomes flaky and crisp on top and moist and flavorful underneath. In some versions, butter is melted in the baking dish and a loose, cake-like batter is poured over it. The fruit is then placed on top, and the bottom layer will rise above the fruit as it cooks. Check my fresh peach cobbler for an example.
Crumble
A crumble starts off the same way, with some kind of fruit or berry at the bottom of a baking dish. The topping is then added, which tends to be a streusel like mix of flour, butter, and sugar. Sometimes spices are added to the crumble as well.
Crisp
The difference between crisps and a crumble are more subtle, and sometimes the terms are used interchangeably. The only real difference is that in a crisp, oats and sometimes nuts are added to the streusel topping. This is what gives the finished dish a “crisp” and crunchy topping.
Honorable Mentions
There are a bunch of other similar desserts that deserve mention but would need an entire post to discuss them all.
A buckle is like the cake-like version of cobbler, where a cake layer cooks up and around the fruit and “buckles” as it puffs up. Usually also topped with a crumble, it’s like a fruit-studded coffee cake.
A pandowdy is also like a cobbler, but instead of a biscuit topping, it’s topped with either scraps of pie dough, or a pie dough that fits over the baking dish and then broken up as it cooks.
Almost identical to a cobbler, a grunt is basically the same dessert, but instead of being baked, it’s cooked in a covered Dutch oven or large skilled and steamed instead.
📖 Blackberry-Pear Crisp Variations
While I love this pear and blackberry crisp just how it is, there are also a lot of variations to experiment with as well.
Different Ingredients
Other Pears or Berries – While I prefer Bosc pears, feel free to experiment with other pear options, or even mix them up for varying flavors and textures. You can also swap the blackberries out for blueberries, raspberries, or cranberries, or try a mixed berry blend. I don’t recommend strawberries here though, as they can be a bit watery, and I don’t find they match as well with pears.
Ginger – As mentioned in the ingredients section above, if you’re not a fan of fresh ginger, simply omit. If all you have is ground ginger, don’t swap it in for fresh. You can, however, swap a teaspoon of ground ginger with the ground cinnamon in the topping instead if you wish.
Pear Crisp Without Oats – While a crisp can be made without oats, typically the oats and/or nuts are what separates crisps from crumbles. If you wish to omit the oat topping however, increase the flour in the topping to 1 cup.
Pear Crisp with Nuts – A crisp usually includes oats in the topping, but sometimes nuts are also added. Roughly chop 1 cup of pecans or walnuts and mix into the topping when you add the oats. Other decent options include almonds and macadamia nuts.
Gluten Free Blackberry Crisp – Swap out the flour in the crisp topping with your favorite gluten free flour blend. Oats are naturally gluten free but check for brands that sell oats labelled as gluten free. Cross contamination in packaging can sometimes lead to a bit of flour being mixed in.
Different Styles
Blackberry Pear Crumble – If you’d like to omit the old-fashioned oats from the topping and make a blackberry and pear crumble instead, like my pear-cranberry crumble, it’s an easy switch. Omit the oats, increase the flour to 1 cup, and melt the butter. Let the butter cool slightly and then mix with the other topping ingredients using a fork until the texture of wet sand. You may need a little extra butter if the mixture feels too dry.
Blackberry and Pear Cobbler – This recipe can also be turned into a pear cobbler instead. Keep the pear and blackberry layer the same, but then make sweet biscuits that you can shape and drop on top. Follow the directions in my fresh peach cobbler recipe for the biscuit topping ingredients and directions.
Smaller Batch – If you want to make an easy blackberry and pear crisp, but don’t want an entire 13x9 pan worth, you can cut the recipe in half. Bake in an 8x8 or 9x9 pan (or a 9” round pan) instead and reduce the baking time to 30-35 minutes.
💭 Frequently Asked Questions
Like with apples, this is mostly down to personal preference. You don’t have to peel them, and leaving the skin on can give your dish a rustic quality. Some pears have thicker or firmer skin though and peeling them may help them cook more easily.
Pears are typically picked when unripe and allowed to continue to ripen at room temperature. The riper they are, the juicier and more pronounced the “pear” flavor becomes. For baking, however, you’ll want to use most pears slightly before they’re fully ripe or they can become too soft and lead to mushy or mealy desserts.
Both a crumble and a crisp are baked desserts and are very similar. The main difference in a crisp is that the topping usually contains oats and/or nuts, while a crumble is just a streusel topping.
🍽 Recommended Equipment
For an easy blackberry and pear crisp recipe, there’s not a lot of special equipment involved at all. You’ll probably already have everything you need to make this recipe, but here’s a handful of tools to check out if you don’t already have them.
Peeler – Having a good set of fruit or vegetable peelers makes quick work peeling the pears here. This set of vegetable peelers from OXO is great and is what I used here. I love this set because it comes with a straight, serrated, and julienne peeler to meet any needs you may have.
Pastry Cutter – If you don’t have or want to use a food processor, a pastry cutter works well for cutting butter into flour by hand. A fork works as well but takes a little more elbow grease. If you do use a food processor, I recommend pulsing the topping ingredients together without the oats first, then adding the oats and pulse it 2-3 times to finish.
Baking Dish – In almost all fruit dessert recipes that require baking, especially recipes where the fruit contacts the dish, I recommend using glass or ceramic coated baking dishes. I prefer this 13x9 glass baking dish especially, and this 13x9 enameled baking dish from Staub. Metal baking pans can leave the finished dish with a slightly metallic taste.
❄️ Storing & Reheating Blackberry-Pear Crisp
Pear crisp recipes can be stored, covered, at room temperature for about 2 days. If you don’t plan on finishing it the day it’s made or the next day, storing it in the refrigerator is recommended. You can store the whole dish once cooled completely, cover and refrigerate for 3-4 days. When reheating, you can microwave blackberry and pear crisp in small portions, but it does soften the crisp topping a lot. If reheating for a group, I'd suggest a 350°F oven for 15-20 minutes, until heated through.
For longer storage, allow the blackberry crisp to cool completely and cover with plastic wrap and again in aluminum foil and freeze for up to 3 months. To reheat, thaw overnight in the fridge and then bake in a 350°F oven for 20-30 minutes, until heated throughout.
If you wish to make this ahead of time, follow the directions up until the baking. Wrap as above and freeze. The day before you plan on cooking it, thaw it overnight in the refrigerator and then bake as directed. You may need to increase the baking time by 5-15 minutes depending on how cold it was when you cooked it.
📋 Recipe
Blackberry-Pear Crisp (with Ginger)
Ingredients
Oat Topping:
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup brown sugar, packed
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
- ½ cup butter, cold, cut into cubes
Blackberry Pear Layer:
- 5 medium Bosc pears, peeled and cut into chunks
- 12 ounces blackberries, washed and dried
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- ¼ cup brown sugar, packed
- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated/minced
- 2 tablespoons tapioca starch, or corn starch/flour
Directions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F / 180°C.
- In a mixing bowl add ¾ cup all-purpose flour, ¾ cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1 cup of oats and mix. Cut the cold ½ cup of cubed butter into the mixture with a pastry blender or fork until you have small pieces of butter fully mixed throughout. Set it aside.
- In another mixing bowl, add the washed and dried 12-ounces of blackberries, 5 peeled and chopped pears, 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, ¼ cup brown sugar, 1 tablespoon grated ginger, and 2 tablespoons tapioca starch. Stir gently to combine.
- Spread the fruit mixture evenly into a 13x9 baking dish. Now cover it with the oat topping, trying to get full and even coverage across the dish.
- Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 40-45 minutes until the fruit is bubbling around the edges and the topping is golden brown.
- Remove the blackberry pear crisp from the oven and let it cool for at least 15 minutes or so before serving. It will continue to thicken as it cools. Serve warm or at room temperature, topped with ice cream for the best experience.
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