I hope my mother-in-law isn't reading this post because I have to admit that I used some very expensive pears she sent to make this pie. Since we moved to Maryland, she's been thoughtful enough to send us holiday treats from Harry and David. For Valentine's Day, the shipment included some of their famous Royal Riviera Pears, which I love. Unfortunately, I forgot to eat them and they got too squishy to eat on their own. So I decided to bake them in a Custard Pear Pie, and it was really, really delicious! Now, maybe the pie would turn out just as delicious with regular ol' supermarket pears, but I'm gonna go ahead and attribute the pie's yumminess to the pears. ;)
I used four (peeled) pears, which might've filled up the pie plate a bit too much. I had almost half of the custard filling leftover. As you can tell from the photo above, the filling didn't dribble down between the pear pieces, so the custard is really only a thin layer at the top. Next time I'll use fewer pears or a deeper pie dish ... because I like custard!
For the filling, instead of sprinkling the sugar mixture on top of the pears in the crust, I mixed it with the pears to macerate them (like you would for an apple pie filling). I wanted the sweetness to be evenly distributed.
Since I had custard filling left over, I made a baked custard as a little treat for myself. It's basically a crème brûlée filling, minus the hard caramel top. I added a tablespoon of sugar and few drops of vanilla extract, mixed it well, and then poured it into an oven-proof dish. I set that into a simple bain-marie (water bath) and baked it at 350 for 30-40 minutes until the custard set.
I was going to decorate it with fresh berries and get all fancy, but I ended up devouring it as-is after lunch!
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