Pear Pie

Ingredients

• 1 package (2 crusts) refrigerated pie dough (store-bought or homemade), or a double batch of homemade dough
• 6 cups peeled, sliced firm pears
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tbsp cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)
• 1 tbsp coarse sugar, for sprinkling

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400°F (204°C). Fit one crust into a 9-inch pie dish.
2. In a large bowl, gently toss the peeled, sliced firm pears with the sugar, thickener, spice, lemon juice, and salt until evenly coated.
3. Pour the filling into the crust and dot with the butter pieces.
4. Top with the second crust, forming a lattice top, or cut several vents in a full top crust. Crimp the edges to seal, then brush the top with the beaten egg and sprinkle with coarse sugar.
5. Bake for 45–55 minutes, until the crust is deep golden and the filling is bubbling through the vents.
6. Cool on a wire rack at least 2 hours before slicing so the filling has time to set.

The Tale of Pear Pie

Story updated September 18, 2026

Pears arrived in North America with some of the earliest English colonists, planted in Massachusetts orchards in the 1600s, decades before many other fruit trees took hold in the New World. Early American cookbooks folded pears into the young country's pie tradition alongside apples and quince; Susannah Carter's The Frugal Housewife, widely printed in both Britain and the colonies from the 1770s onward, includes an early pear pie recipe enriched with egg yolks, cream, and nutmeg poured in after baking. Pear cultivation struggled on the East Coast as blight took a toll on orchards, but pioneers carried pear trees west in the 1800s, where the cooler, drier climates of Oregon and Washington proved far better suited to the fruit, a region that still supplies most of America's commercial pears today. Compared to apple or pumpkin pie, pear pie never became a singularly iconic American dessert, but it has quietly persisted as a specialty pie since the earliest days of English settlement.