This post may contain affiliate links. Click here for my affiliate disclosure. If you purchase items through my affiliate links, I receive a small commission but your price doesn't change.
This warm and comforting Cranberry, Apple & Pear Crisp is the perfect THM E dessert – with easy ingredients! Swap out the THM Super Sweet Blend for your favorite low-glycemic sweetener (to taste) and you should be able to source all the ingredients locally!
I’m in love with the taste and softness of the pears. You can experiment with substituting more apples or other fruits if you can’t find pears at certain times of year; but this combination of soft pears, tart ‘n’ crisp Granny Smith apples, and bright red cranberries was a real winner. I loved the pears so much that if anything, I would try using all pears!
Click here to pin this recipe!
The texture of this crisp is just amazing. It has the perfect “goo” on the bottom and a nice topping layer. The flavors of the crisp are relatively bold…bold enough to stand up to being served with a hefty scoop of vanilla ice cream and not lose their identity. 😛 Speaking of ice cream…
Some serving suggestions:
- Any THM-friendly, sugar-free vanilla ice cream, like my Basic Vanilla Scoopable Ice Cream, if you don’t mind a crossover
- A low-fat, sugar-free ice cream, like my Low Fat Soft Serve, if you want to stay in a THM E setting
- A dab of fat-free Reddi-wip
- Stevia-sweetened low-fat vanilla Greek yogurt, like Oikos Triple Zero or your own homemade version
- Unsweetened almond or cashew milk
- Sugar-free “maple” syrup
SOME RECIPE NOTES:
Cranberries can be hard (read: next to impossible) to find except in a very narrow window around Thanksgiving. I buy up big time then and freeze the cranberries to use the rest of the year! They keep amazingly well.
This recipe is fairly tart as written due to the Granny Smith apples and cranberries, so feel free to add more sweetener. I usually err on the lower side with sweetener because I prefer things less sweet rather than having an aftertaste, but everyone’s taste buds are different!
The only “flour” used in this recipe is oat flour! Good news to the budget-conscious: oat flour is just flour made by grinding up old-fashioned or quick oats in a blender or coffee/spice grinder.
Since this is a THM E recipe, I used less than a teaspoon of added fat (butter) per serving to stay within THM E guidelines. For a dairy-free version you could try using Nutiva butter-flavored coconut oil. If you don’t mind a crossover (which is a combination of carbs and fats), feel free to use more butter to create a richer topping layer (but it’s great as written).
COMING UP SOON:
A Pecan Pie in a Bowl recipe that you won’t want to miss! Keep your eyes peeled! Also be on the lookout for a few Mother’s Day giveaways I have up my sleeve…. You’ll have a few chances to win one of my cookbooks! I’ll be running separate giveways on my Facebook and Instagram pages as well as sending out a giveaway opportunity to my email subscribers, so check those out in the next day or two. After the giveaways are over this weekend, I’ll be running a sale on my cookbooks for a few days here on my website! Don’t miss it! (I’ll be sending out emails about the giveaways and sale, so if you’re on my email list you’ll be sure to see the details. Social media can be pretty sporadic with what it actually shares with people who like my page, so signing up for email updates is the most reliable way to make sure you don’t miss out on anything important.)
You may also enjoy:
-
STARTING THM
-
MY RECIPE INDEX
-
RECIPE INDEX BY FUEL TYPE/ALLERGY/THEME
-
MY THM E DESSERT RECIPES!
-
ALL OF MY DAIRY-FREE RECIPES
As always, check out the Notes section of the recipe for extra info. Check out the links in and below the recipe to see the products I use and recommend. Some of the links included in the recipe and blog post are affiliate links, which means that if you make purchases through these links, I make a small commission (but your price doesn’t change).
My cookbooks Necessary Food and Convenient Food contain about 400 low-glycemic recipes each, separated by carbs and fats and free of refined sugar and flour (like all the recipes here on my website). I grew up on my momma’s good cooking, and the recipes in these books are mostly just old family favorites made healthy! Now that I’m married, I’m gravitating even more toward quick and easy, and my newest cookbook definitely reflects that! CLICK HERE to check out my cookbooks in more detail and purchase.
- 4 cups peeled, cored, and chopped Granny Smith apples
- 4 cups peeled, cored, and chopped D’Anjou pears
- 1 ½ cups cranberries
- -
- 1 cup water
- 2 tablespoons THM Super Sweet Blend (or more, to taste)
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons molasses
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum
- -
- 1 ½ cups old-fashioned oats (use gluten-free if necessary)
- ½ cup oat flour (use gluten-free if necessary)
- 2 teaspoons THM Super Sweet Blend
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- -
- 3 tablespoons salted butter (melted)
- Layer the apples, pears, and cranberries in a greased 9” x 13” baking pan.
- Whisk the second section of ingredients together, adding the xanthan gum a little at a time while whisking so it doesn’t clump.
- Pour the sauce over the fruit in the pan and use a spatula to toss the fruit and sauce together and spread out the mixture evenly.
- Whisk the dry ingredients for the topping together, then add the melted butter and mix well to distribute the butter evenly. Spread the topping mixture evenly over the fruit in the pan.
- Cover with foil and bake at 350* for 30 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for another 30 minutes uncovered. Let the crisp cool for a few minutes before serving.
- Enjoy with some low-fat, sugar-free ice cream such as my Low Fat Soft Serve recipe, or top with a dab of fat-free Reddi-wip. Stevia-sweetened low-fat vanilla Greek yogurt, some unsweetened almond or cashew milk, or even sugar-free “maple” syrup would be good toppings as well.
-Feel free to substitute other varieties of apples and pears as long as they’re good for baking.
-I buy and freeze cranberries over Thanksgiving when they’re available in grocery stores.
-The recipe is fairly tart as written from the Granny Smith apples and cranberries, so feel free to add more sweetener. I err on the lower side with sweetener because I prefer things less sweet rather than having an aftertaste, but everyone’s taste buds are different!
-Molasses is approved on the THM plan in small amounts (up to ¼ teaspoon per serving) for flavor.
-Oat flour is just flour made by grinding up old-fashioned or quick oats in a blender or coffee/spice grinder.
-This is a THM E recipe, but I used less than a teaspoon of added fat (butter) per serving to stay within THM E guidelines. For a dairy-free version you could try using Nutiva butter-flavored coconut oil. If you don’t mind a crossover (combination of carbs and fats), feel free to use more butter to create a richer topping layer (but it’s great like this).
-Nutrition calculated for 12 large servings (nutrition and allergy info for crisp only, not including toppings such as ice cream, etc.).
ALLERGY INFO
-Gluten free (use GF ingredients)
-Egg free
-Dairy free (use a DF butter-flavored coconut oil like Nutiva butter-flavored coconut oil in place of the butter)
-Nut free
Here are some of the ingredients used in this recipe!
You can pin this recipe here:
This turned out great using only apples! I didn’t have any pears on hand so used all apples, left out the cranberries and my whole family loved it! I used coconut oil in place of the melted better also and it worked great! My apples are Transparent variety (more mushy by nature than Granny Smith) so baking time was less. Thank you, Briana, for so many delicious recipes!
Hi, Briana, this is my favourite of your recipes that I have tried so far! It was our go-to recipe for Thanksgiving and Christmas this past year. However, this weekend I wanted to try making a plain apple crisp and used a recipe from somewhere else, but I’ll not be making that recipe again! Do you think this recipe would work with all apples? Would I omit the cloves or the molasses? Thank you for any tips that you might have. I appreciate your generosity in sharing your recipes. 😀
I’ve never tried it with just apples, so I’m not sure! I don’t see why it wouldn’t work, although I do really like the texture that the pears add to this because they get so nice and soft. I would try just using all apples in place of the pears and cranberries called for. I would personally keep everything else the same, at least for the first test run, but feel free to back down on the cinnamon and cloves if the spice level seems overwhelming against the apples. Definitely keep the molasses for that brown sugar flavor.
Ok, thank you so much for your help! Yes, the pears (and the cranberries) are really nice in this recipe, but I just received a lot of apples and no pears. 😀
Delicious! We had it this evening and even the children liked it and asked for seconds! Although a few weren’t quite sure about the red berries 🙂
Awesome! I’m so glad it was a hit! Even with the red berries. 😛