Experimental Cobbler

We threw together some last minute family plans last night, so I found out I had about one hour to make a dessert. I started rummaging through cookbooks and the freezer. I was thinking pineapple upside down cake, but then nixed it because of too much sugar. I finally pulled a bag of frozen pears and a bag of frozen fresh cranberries out of the freezer. I figured, even though there has to be quite a bit of sugar because of the cranberries, that at least it's mostly fruit. I had made a cranberry pear pie last year and it turned out well. I combined that idea with my standard cobbler/crisp topping and this is what I came up with:

Filling:
1 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. of salt
3 cups of frozen (thawed) pears, peeled and sliced
1 12 oz bag of frozen (partially thawed) whole fresh cranberries
~Combine first four filling ingredients. Add fruit, combine, and let sit while you mix up the topping.

Topping:
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
~Combine all ingredients.

Pour filling in a greased (though I'm not sure that's really necessary) 9 by 13 pan. Spread topping over it and pat down. Mine was a little more crumbly than it is when I make the typical apple crisp with this topping, but I added a little extra flour. It worked out well with this filling, I think, and it made it more like a crumb topping.

Bake at 350 for about 30-45 minutes. I was sort of waiting on the topping to brown a little, but I used dark brown sugar and whole wheat flour, so I couldn't really tell. Mine was probably in for at least 45 minutes, maybe closer to an hour, but some of the ingredients were still a little cold and it was interrupted for a short car trip as well.

This was really good and I think everyone liked it. I was a little worried about the amount of ginger I used, since the filling tasted very gingery when uncooked. But once it was all put together and baked it was much more subtle. This wasn't over-sweet, but I thought it was about right. The original pie recipe included some craisins, so I increased the sugar in the filling a little to compensate. I also didn't include the lemon zest that recipe listed. Mine had more cranberries than the original was well.

It was fun to throw something together based on what I knew and could pull out of the freezer and pantry. Sort of like on Chopped....OK, maybe not so much like that. (By the way, that is a fun show! It's so much better than most reality TV.) If you make this, no guarantees since I only made it once. But it turned out well that time for me.