This upside down pear pie with the caramel on top is the best! The original recipe is inspired from a blue band basic Dutch cookbook that was gifted to me by my father in law. I received this gift over 15 years ago when I moved in with my boyfriend, who is now my husband. My father in-law is the best cook I know and I will never forget the first time he cooked dinner for me. I thought his first course was the main meal and I was already full when he put a second delicious dish on the table. That was the first of many delicious and fun family dinners.
The blue band cookbook was my first introduction into how easy and fun it is to cook things for myself. I used to make this pie a lot when I first started baking. Recently, as I was looking through all my cookbooks, I realized I had to revisit it and give it my own twist.
I added some ice cold vodka to the pie dough to make it less dry. This makes the dough come together quickly and it’s easier to work with.
The filling is an easy caramel sauce made with butter and brown sugar. You pour this into your prepared baking pan and arrange your pears on top. Finally, you add your pie dough.
When baking this pie do not use a springform pan! If you do, the caramel sauce will pour out of it and make a giant mess into your oven. Unfortunately, I learned this lesson the hard way and it made a big smoky mess.
Upside Down Pear Pie
Ingredients
Pie Dough
- 1 3/4 Cup All purpose flour
- 2 Tablespoons Cane sugar
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
- 8 Tablespoons Unsalted butter frozen
- 1 Egg
- 1-2 Tablespoons vodka ice cold
Filling
- 8 Tablespoon Brown sugar
- 4 Tablespoon Unsalted butter
- 4 Pears peeled and sliced thinly
- 1-2 Tablespoons Lemon juice
Instructions
Dough
- In a mixing bowl combine flour, salt and sugar.
- Grate the frozen butter on top of the flour and cut it in with a pastry knife. Be careful that the butter doesn’t melt. You need to work quickly.
- Add the egg and knead in by hand. Again, you need to work quickly.
- One tablespoon at a time, knead in the vodka until you feel the dough is coming together without much effort.
- Put the dough on cling wrap and form a disk. Wrap it airtight and let it rest for at least 1-2 hours in the fridge.
Filling
- Preheat your oven to 350 Farhenheit.
- Prepare a baking dish by greasing it with oil or melted butter.
- In a saucepan, combine your unsalted butter and brown sugar on medium low heat until it turns golden brown. Poor the sauce in your prepared dish.
- Peel, core and slice your pear in thin pieces. Drizzle the pear slices with the lemon juice then place them on top of your caramel sauce in the baking pan.
- Roll out your chilled dough onto a floured counter top. You want to roll it into a round circle slightly bigger then your baking pan. Carefully place the dough on top of the pears and tuck the sides gently under the pears. *
- Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes.
- Let the pie cool on the cooling rack for 10 minutes.
- Place your serving plate on top of the pie and carefully turn it over. You can enjoy the pie warm or let it cool down completely.