18 Favorite Pear Desserts For Fall

Pears can be an overlooked and forgotten fruit. I think they get lost in the shuffle between summer berry season and fall apple season, but these late summer to early fall fruits are wonderful and complex. Like apples, there are different varieties that range in flavor profiles. This post celebrates pears in all their glory, with a range of recipes. If this is a fruit you’ve overlooked in the past, now’s the time to stop and enjoy one of my favorite fruits for baking.

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Meringue Cake with Roasted Pears

Meringue Cake with Roasted Pears

I started the Zoë Bakes blog in 2007 as a way to stay connected to pastry while I was raising my boys and working on the Breadin5 bread books. I quickly found my community of online peers and Aran Goyoaga and her blog, Cannelle et Vanille, was at the center of it. Her recipes and photography stood out and became the bar the rest of us tried to reach. All these years later I am still striving to create the beauty she seems to produce with such immense grace and ease as if pastry is an innate talent. She grew up in a baking family and so, perhaps she was born with a touch of magic in her hand.

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Anthropologie Catalog Dessert Recipes: (Poached Pear Tart, Creme Brûlée, Apple Crisp)

Fall Fruit Tart | ZoeBakes photo by Zoë François

It is with delight that I share with you the desserts I created for the current Anthropologie Catalog, which you can find in the stores and on their website. They invited me to Philadelphia to bake and style the desserts and I had an absolute blast. It is a funny world I occupy, most of it spent alone in my kitchen, virtually interacting with all the wonderfully talented folks I’ve met online. So, when presented with the opportunity to work with the creative force that puts out the Anthropologie catalog, it took me less than an instant to reply with an enthusiastic, YES! And, as if that weren’t enough of an honor, they put my tart on the cover (below). Mind Blown. You can read the lovely piece they wrote about me and you’ll find the recipes for The Poached Pear Tart, Creme Brûlée and Apple Cranberry Crisp below.

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