Spiced Chocolate Pear Cobbler is a beautiful dessert featuring dropped biscuit and seasonal fruits coated with a mix of warm Autumn spices and dark chocolate. It’s crunchy, fruity, and it makes a cozy dessert for those chilly days out there.
If you ask me, pear and chocolate is the ultimate combo! The sweet and juicy pears meld together with the bittersweet chocolate, creating the perfect balance of aroma and texture. Divine! I like pears and chocolate together in a sweet crumble, in a rustic pie, and today in this wonderful spiced chocolate pear cobbler recipe.
It’s no surprise that I created this recipe to answer my chocolate cravings, but also with the idea to bring you inspiration to make a simple yet original dessert recipe. So if you can’t decide between fruits and chocolate, cake and pie, and feel lazy to spend hours baking, this pear cobbler is the answer. Yet, you get a subtle dessert recipe featuring pears, fall spice, warm melting chocolate and some irresistible dropped biscuits on top. I bet you’ll ask for seconds!
What is a cobbler?
To keep it simple, a sweet cobbler resembles to a crumble or an inverted pie. It consists of a fruit filling poured into a large baking dish and covered with a batter biscuit on top. It’s sweet, juicy, moist and tender but also crispy on the edges. All the textures you could expect are here reunited in one single dessert.
The origins of cobblers goes back to the British American colonies. Rather than an elegant dish, a cobbler is on the contrary the result of the lack of ingredients and cooking equipment. So instead, English settlers would cover a stewed filling with an uneven layer of uncooked biscuits resembling to scones and placed in a “cobbled” stone pathway. Hence the name “cobbler” (although the origin of the name is still uncertain).
This spiced chocolate pear cobbler features a top of buttermilk biscuits that are directly inspired from my biscuit recipe. Halfway between a crust and a cake, this top part is a no-brainer. Everyone can make it, and you don’t have to worry about the final visual aspect. The more rustic it appears, the better. It’s this type of dessert that make you feel like being home: it’s sweet, comforting, and just so good!
Subtle spiced pear filling
Now what’s underneath this biscuit topping? Some delicious pears, cut into chunks and coated with some brown sugar and fall spices such as cinnamon, all-spice, nutmeg, and ginger. The choice of pears is entirely up to you, but I recommend you choose them firm enough so they don’t become mushy when cooking.
Rather than granulated or caster sugar, I went for brown sugar, that enables to enhance the spice flavors in the dish. Light or dark brown sugar work equally well for this recipe. Note also that the amount of sugar is pretty low for the entire recipe, as I want to make sure we can taste all the flavors of the dessert. Last but not least, don’t forget to add some lemon juice to prevent oxidation before using the fruits, and more importantly the use of cornstarch that will insure pears don’t become too juicy when baking.
A hint of chocolate and other possible variations
The little extra to this spiced pear cobbler is of course the use of chocolate here and there. Here I went for dark chocolate, that is a personal favorite of mine when it comes to pair it with pears.
Other possible variations around the recipe include:
- Chocolate. If you are not a dark chocolate lover, you can use semi-sweet or milk chocolate instead.
- Sugar. Sugar in the biscuits is not optional, but the one you use to coat the fruits is. So feel free to use more or less depending on your own tastes, or even go without if you prefer!
- Spices. I suggest a perfect balance of spice mix, but in case you don’t have all spices at home, you can use just a little bit of cinnamon. Or even go without the spices – just keep in mind that it will change the final outcome of the recipe but it works too.
Assembling the pear cobbler
There’s nothing easier than assembling this pear cobbler. Start with spreading a thick layer of fruits at the bottom of the dish, making sure you leave the extra juice behind. Then add the biscuit batter. To do so, you have 2 options:
- You can either drop some handfuls of biscuit batter on top of the fruits, covering the entire surface.
- Or you can flatten the dough onto a flat surface, then cut it out with the use of a cookie cutter. Place each circle of dough next to each other covering the fruit filling, and you get this lovely “cobbled” pattern.
Now, don’t forget the brushing part! This final touch is what makes the biscuit extra crunchy and beautifully golden. I use some extra buttermilk to brush on top of each biscuit, then I like to sprinkle some granulated sugar on top. Bake until slightly golden and cooked through, and serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!
More fall desserts with pears:
- Pear and Chocolate Ricotta Galette
- Rustic Pear and Chestnut Tart with a Hazelnut Crust
- Pear-Apple Frangipane Tartlets with Cardamom
- Cardamom-Infused Pears with Quinoa-Nut Crunch
- Pear Compote with Black Peppercorn Syrup
- Pear and Chocolate Mini Galettes des Rois
- Saffron Pear Tarte Tatin
Fruit crumble ideas:
- Triple Berry Crisp with White Chocolate Sauce
- Best Apple Crisp
- Crunchy Pecan, Pear and Chocolate Crumble
Spiced Chocolate Pear Cobbler
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Cook Time: 45 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
- Category: Cakes and pies
- Cuisine: American
Spiced Chocolate Pear Cobbler is a beautiful dessert featuring dropped biscuit and seasonal fruits coated with a mix of warm Autumn spices and dark chocolate.
Ingredients
For the filling:
- 2.2 pounds (1 kg) pears, peeled, cored and diced
- ¼ cup (45g) dark brown sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon all-spice
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ginger
- 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 3 Tablespoons cornstarch
- 3,5 ounces (100g) dark baking chocolate, chopped
- 1 Tablespoon butter, diced
For the biscuit topping:
- 1 ½ cups (190g) all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup (65g) granulated sugar + extra for dusting
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 6 Tablespoons (85g) unsalted butter, cold and diced
- 1/2 cup (120ml) homemade buttermilk**, cold and divided
Instructions
For the filling:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and grease a 9-inch (23 cm) cast iron pan or a 9×13-inch (23×33 cm) pan. Set aside.
- Add pears to a large mixing bowl. In a separate and smaller bowl, mix sugar with all spices. Add the sugar mixture to the pears, then pour in the fresh lemon juice, cornstarch, and toss well.
- Transfer the pears into the prepared pan, top with chopped baking chocolate, and sprinkle with diced butter on top. Set aside.
For the biscuit topping:
- Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large mixing bowl. Cut the butter into the mixture and press with your finger tips* until it resembles coarse meal (pea-sized crumbs). Slowly drizzle ½ cup buttermilk** (minus one Tablespoon) and mix until combined.
- Take handfuls of dough and gently flatten out (you can also use a cookie cutter to make regular circles of dough). Place dough all over the top of the pear filling in a way that covers most of the fruits.
- Brush the top of the biscuit dough with the remaining Tablespoon of buttermilk, then sprinkle with coarse sugar.
- Bake for about 45 minutes, or until biscuits are slightly golden and cooked through. Let cool for 5 minutes on the countertop and serve warm with some vanilla ice cream on top.
Notes
* You could also use a fork or alternatively a pastry cutter, that makes this step very easy and quick. One other option consists in using a food processor instead.
** To prepare homemade buttermilk, add 1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice (or alternatively white vinegar/apple cider vinegar) to a measuring cup and cover with very cold milk until it reaches 1/2 cup (120 ml). Stir it around and let sit for 5 minutes until curdled.
Did you make this recipe?
Lastly, if you make this Spiced Chocolate Pear Cobbler, be sure to leave a comment and give this recipe a rating, letting me know how you liked it. And of course, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Thank you and enjoy!
