A watercolour of tinned pear halves under a golden crunchy syrup-glazed cornflake crust in a small pan
Generated with OpenAI gpt-image-1
Adapted from The fruit crumble, where a rubbed topping of flour and fat bakes to a sandy crust over cooked fruit

Pears under a cornflake crust

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 6 months, set by Cornflakes.

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves
2
Burners
1
Pans
1
Water
0.05 L
Active
8 min
Total
12 min

Ingredients

A pudding from two tins and a pan, in twelve minutes, that tastes considerably better than that sentence suggests.

The topping is made separately and goes on at the end. Cornflakes stirred into wet fruit go soft immediately. Toasted in syrup in a dry corner of the pan and spooned over at the table, they stay crisp.

  1. Drain the pears, keeping about four tablespoons of the juice. Slice them thickly.
  2. Pears and the reserved juice into the pan with the cinnamon, low heat, and let them warm through and the juice reduce to something syrupy. Five minutes. Tip them into bowls.
  3. Same pan, wiped if it is wet. Oil and golden syrup in, over a low to moderate heat, until it bubbles.
  4. Cornflakes in and stir constantly for two to three minutes. They will darken and start to smell toasted and the syrup will stop looking wet.
  5. Tip straight over the pears.

Watch it in the last thirty seconds. Syrup goes from caramel to bitter very quickly and there is no recovering it. The moment the smell turns from toasty to sharp, it is already too late.

It will crisp further as it cools for a minute. Eat it soon after that.

What this was adapted from

The fruit crumble, where a rubbed topping of flour and fat bakes to a sandy crust over cooked fruit

  • a rubbed flour and butter topping baked in an oven → cornflakes toasted in syrup in the pan

    A crumble needs an oven and a fat that keeps, and a cupboard has neither. Cornflakes turned through hot syrup and oil go crisp and candied in the pan in four minutes, which is a different pudding honestly, but the same job: something crunchy and sweet over something soft.

  • fresh pears → tinned pears in juice

    Tinned pears are softer than poached fresh ones and already sweet, so no sugar goes near the fruit. Their juice becomes the syrup base, which fresh fruit would not give you.