Pear, Cranberry, and Yoghurt Pie

Let's try and make something other than the traditional apple pie, and venture to a delicious and sweet pear, cranberry, and yoghurt pie you can make easily.

For a 26 cm diameter deep-dish pie, you will need:

• One 33 cm diameter shortcrust pastry
• 3 eggs
• 250 grams of sugar
• One and a half tablespoon of flour
• 300 grams of plain yoghurt
• One teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 2 medium-sized ripe pears
• About 60 grams of fresh cranberries (previously cleaned)

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Baking time: 1 hour 10 minutes (20 minutes for the shortcrust pastry by itself, and 45 to 50 minutes for the whole pie with filling)


Start by preheating your oven to 225 C (435 F).

Cover your deep-dish pie pan with parchment paper and lay your shortcut pastry on it.

Add another sheet of parchment paper over the shortcrust pastry and add weight on it. In my case I used some baking ceramic pie weights, but you can also used dried beans.

Once your oven is preheated, place the shortcrust pastry in it for about 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, remove from the oven and let it cool.

Reduce your oven temperature to 175 C (350 F).

While your pastry is cooling down, prepare your pie filling.

In a bowl, combine the eggs and the sugar and whisk until you obtain a frothy mix as shown below.

Then add the flour and mix gently.

In a separate bowl, add the vanilla extract to the plain yoghurt, and mix.

Add the vanilla-yoghurt mixture to the egg-sugar-flour mixture and mix together.

Once the shortcrust pastry has cooled down, add the filling.

Peel and core the pears.

Slice the pears into thin slices.

Place the slices in the filling, all in the same direction. Be sure to not over-crowd the pear slices.

Distribute the cranberries on the top.

Place the pie in the oven for about 40 minutes.

After 40 minutes, increase your oven temperature to 200 C (390 F), and let the pie bake for another 5 to 10 minutes, or until the color of the filling becomes golden. For the last baking part, keep your eyes on the pie.

Remove the pie from the oven and let it cool down.

You can eat your pie either cold or luke warm.

Enjoy!

As with all the other recipes we put on this site, this is meant to be easy to follow. We are hobby chefs who love to cook, and we are always up for learning new techniques. If you know of anything in this recipe which can be done a different way, whether for increased ease of preparation or better taste, please add a comment below!

Whipped up by Charline Leblond
Photographs by Charline Leblond

Sidmouth - UK

Nice little town located on the UK Jurassic Coast, Sidmouth is quite charming.

We visited this town and had dinner there in July 2012.


The Anchor Inn

The pub menu is more or less the same as any other pub in the UK, but the difference is that the food here was good.

We were three eating here: the two of us, and my eight years old cousin who is also a foodie and a good cook*.

The menu at the time offered four different types of Fish and Chips: the Cod Fillet, the Haddock Fillet, the Plaice Fillet, and the Whole Tail Scampi. My eight years old cousin tried the Cod Fillet and because it was good and the portion was quite big (served with chipped potatoes, garden peas, and fresh salad), it was enough to satisfy our appetite. The only thing she wasn't fond of were the garden peas, because it tasted, and was, a bit weird. As she stated: "they are big and flashy green, it's weird!" which, in her defence, is the same in every UK pub ... I guess that's one of those weird British foods.

It was her first Fish and Chips and she was really pleased with the discovery, we even got the honor of a "it delicious! (in English ... oh yeah, I forgot to mention that she's French), and she also became very fond of coleslaw.

I had the Traditional Cottage Pie: the beef was good and perfectly cooked and the stew was excellent. The only down side was that it wasn't really a pie, they served it to you on two separated butter puff pastries, which was good - don't get me wrong - but not the traditional pie I expected.

Shyamal had The Anchor Burger with a 1/2 pound of beef burger, served with smoked bacon, melted cheese, sliced tomato and lettuce, and accompanied by homemade coleslaw and chipped potatoes. The burger was excellent, the beef was tender and overall the burger was juicy and extremely satisfying.

We all tried each other's dish and agreed that everything was good.

The staff was very friendly and even thought the pub was crowded, the service was fast and good.

For a relative touristy area, and compared to the other pubs in the neighbourhood, the prices were very decent. The burger was 9.25 GBP, the Fish and Chips was 8.95 GBP and the pie was 9.75.


*Note: Just as a side note that has nothing to do with the recommended places, but more with the cooking part of our blog, my eight years old cousin tried few of our recipes and made, by herself (aside from managing the oven) the vanilla creams, the quiche, the carrot cake, the yoghurt and chocolate cake, the chocolate mousse amongst some other recipes she creates.

Reviewed by Charline Leblond and Shyamal Addanki