Easy Pear Tarte Tatin

There’s nothing like a traditional French classic to complete the meal as in a Tarte Tatin but sometimes you just don’t have the time and sometimes your meal just needs a dessert. As I’ve mentioned before in the past, we’re not usually dessert eaters but in winter there’s nothing better than a warm fruit dessert with a little vanilla ice cream to finish off the meal.

Having puff pastry on hand is always a life saver. This particular night I only had a couple sad looking pears left in the crisper so that’s what it was going to be. A traditional tarte tatin you cook the fruit in the pan with the sugar and butter mixture, top with puff pastry, put the pan in the oven and then turn the tarte out onto a plate once baked. This has the same effect but is soooo much quicker. (French cooking traditionalists look away please!)

After arranging the sliced pears onto the sheet of puff, melt some butter in a pot with brown sugar. I added a bit of ground ginger and cinnamon to the mix which complemented the pears perfectly. (Oh, I must add, this is the second attempt. I turned my head for a minute to finish off the main meal and my sugar burnt. Just when I thought everything was going so smoothly. Typical!)

Pour the ooey, gooey caramel over the sliced pears and tuck the pastry corners in to the baking plate/pan. Bake until the pastry has turned golden brown.

Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and you’re done. This would work well with apples, peaches, plums, pineapple or even tomatoes for a savoury version.

Easy Pear Tarte Tatin

• 2 pears, peeled, cored and sliced
• 1 piece frozen puff pastry
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 125gm butter
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
2. Arrange pear slices on defrosted puff pastry.
3. Melt butter with brown sugar and spices.
4. Mix until combined and it turns in to a caramel consistency.
5. Pour over sliced pear and tuck in corners of puff pastry.
6. Bake until puff pastry turns golden brown.
7. Serve with vanilla ice cream, custard or fresh cream.

Pear, Thyme & Ginger Cake with Ginger Custard & Walnut Praline

So, this is the dish I cooked for the Gourmet Garden Best Blogger-Come-Chef competition a fortnight ago in Noosa. After I won my heat back in November last year and once the dust had settled, I set my mind to what I might cook come May. You all know how I love to bake and I wanted to show how versatile herbs could be in sweet dishes. So, what to cook?

I didn’t have any brief, like what equipment was available, how long we had, did we have an oven, could we do a sweet, blah blah blah. I had visions of a savoury cheesecake, a baked pastry plait, tropical tapioca puddings featuring herb infused tropical fruits. My mind was working overtime. I’ve always known pear goes well with thyme as I’ve had it in fruit loaf my Nanna cooked. I experimented with a few different recipes and all worked well in the oven but what if I didn’t have access to an oven? Two weeks out from the competition, we found out we had 45 minutes to cook and an oven between 11 of us so I figured I’d steam the cake instead. A bit of tweaking to the recipe and the above cake was born. My son and I tried it about half a dozen times, so about 6 kilos later, after experimenting with ice cream, custard etc, I decided on the custard and walnut praline additions.

I would rather this cake be baked in an oven and served with a side of double cream and I will whip one of those up in due course (once I get through the overflowing supply of pear cakes in the freezer). The recipe would be slightly different should you want a baked cake. I did bake this recipe in the oven and although okay once straight out of the oven. It goes quite hard when cold but could easily be zapped in the microwave to soften up.

Here’s the recipe, for one cake but could easily serve two. (It might seem like a lot of components but they work pretty well together. You could just make the cake and serve with ice cream.)

Pear, Thyme & Ginger Cake

• 1 egg
• 2 tbs milk
• 1 tbs oil
• 1 tsp Gourmet Garden thyme (or 1 tsp fresh or 1/2 tsp dried)
• 1 tbs Gourmet Garden ginger (or 1 tbs grated fresh or 1 tsp powdered)
• 2 tbs sugar
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ c SR flour
• 1 pear
• extra butter for greasing dish

Caramel Sauce:

• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 tbs butter
• 1/4 cup cream

Ginger Custard:

• 300ml milk
• 1 tbs cornflour
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tbs sugar
• 1 tbs Gourmet Garden ginger (or 1 tbs grated fresh or 1 tsp ground ginger)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Walnut Praline:

• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1 cup sugar

1. Put saucepan with steamer insert (or wok with bamboo steamer) filled with water onto boil.
2. Mix together egg, milk, oil, thyme, ginger, cinnamon and sugar until well combined.
3. Sprinkle flour on top and mix well.
4. In a small saucepan, melt together 1/3 cup brown sugar and 2 tbs butter.
5. Peel pear and dice. Add half diced pear to cake batter and other half pear to melted brown sugar/butter mixture and remove from heat.
6. Grease a suitable container well with butter. (I used a large round tea cup.)
7. Spoon a couple pieces of diced pear into greased container.
8. Spoon over batter, cover with foil and put in steamer and steam for approx 20 mins.
9. Cake will be done when a skewer is inserted and comes out clean.
10. Toast walnuts in an oven or pan until warm to touch.
11. In a pan, sprinkle sugar for praline and do not stir. Move pan around to finish melting all the sugar. Pour over walnuts and spread out on a baking dish lined with baking paper. Will harden in a short time.
12. Add cream to brown sugar/butter mixture and return to heat to warm through.

Custard:

1. Add a little milk to the cornflour in a saucepan.
2. Add egg yolk, ginger, sugar and vanilla and mix well.
3. Add remaining milk and stir over a medium heat with a wooden spoon until thickened or it coats the back of the spoon.

To assemble:

1. Spoon caramel sauce on the plate where cake will be placed.
2. Carefully place cake on top of caramel sauce. Add custard to a serving bowl.
3. Take 2 or 3 sugar coated walnuts and place on top of cake.
4. Finely chop remaining sugared walnuts and place on the side of the cake and on the plate.

It might seem like a lot of ingredients and a lot of processes but honestly, its quite simple to put together. Trust me, I wouldn’t want to put myself under any unnecessary stress!

Individual Pear Tarte Tatin

 

Here in Australia, a dessert is the last course of a meal, usually lunch or dinner, which consists of sweet ingredients. Dessert, pudding, sweets, tart, cake, pavlova, parfait, blancmange, crepes, cheesecake, ice cream, jelly, fruit, crumble, custard, whatever you want to call it, I’m starting a campaign to bring it back.   [photo source]   I grew up having sweets/dessert every night for dinner whether it was something as simple as jelly, ice cream and tinned fruit or a hot pudding. We never had weight issues as kids. To me, it balanced off a meal. It doesn’t have to be high in calories. There are many low calories choices for example yoghurt, fruit, low fat ice creams, low sugar etc .   [photo source]   Every Sunday, I plan on sharing an old fashioned (or modern) dessert recipe that the whole family will enjoy.     To get you started, here’s a recipe from last year for Individual Pear Tarte Tatin. Tarte Tatin is a French upside-down apple tart in which the apples are caramelised in butter and sugar before the tart is baked. You can use any fruit for this and making an individual serve, you can control the serving size.  These can be stored in the fridge (or frozen) for another night.   Do you have any dessert memories from your childhood?

 

Pear & Coconut Mini Muffins

No time to waste around here, so while the oven was on baking cookies, I had to whip up something extra for the kid’s lunch boxes and afternoon tea. Mini muffins are ideal because they’re just a bite sized little morsel, don’t take long to eat, freeze well and taste scrummy. It’s also a good way for me to use up fruit that’s going a little bad. I found 2 sad looking pears in the fridge so Pear and Coconut it was going to be. I so wanted to sprinkled some flaked almonds on top but with nut allergies at both Kindy and School, I didn’t.

I used my Basic Muffin recipe, previously posted, and just added a few ingredients. I don’t worry about cupcake papers for these mini muffins as it’s one less thing the kids have to worry about at lunch time.

Pear & Coconut Mini Muffins

2 cups Self Raising flour
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 egg
2 pears, peeled and finely diced
1/2 cup coconut

Add all ingredients, mix lightly and pour into muffin pan and bake in a 180 deg C oven for 15 minutes. Makes a dozen large sized muffins, 18 cupcake sized muffins or 24 mini muffins.

Linking up with Rhonda from Down to Earth Friday feature, “On My Mind”.?

Crumble Topped Pear Muffins

While the oven was on, I thought I’d better throw something else in. I had a sad old little pear in the crisper waiting to be used up and the smallest bit of crumble mix leftover in the freezer. Added a bit of cinnamon to my Basic Muffin recipe, chopped the pear finely and topped with the crumble mix. Lovely moist muffins to pop in the lunch boxes.

Crumble Topped Pear Muffins

2 cups Self Raising flour
1/4 cup oil (I used Canola)
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 pear, finely chopped
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Crumble topping:
1 tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp oats
1 tbsp coconut
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp butter
(chopped nuts could be added)

Heat oven to 180 deg C. Mix all muffin ingredients together. Add chopped pear and cinnamon. For crumble topping, rub butter into flour and add other ingredients. Sprinkle topping on top of muffin before baking. Bake for 20 mins or until cooked when a skewer is inserted. Makes 12 large size muffins.