Pear Tart
My husband constantly reminds me that he’s a chef, not a pastry chef. But I have to disagree! This homemade pear tart was flaky and sweet. I may have just drooled a little bit thinking about these again…These tarts can be made with any kind of fruit (think apples, pears, apricots), so feel free to be a bit creative!
Ingredients
2 pears
2 oz. vegetable shortening
2 oz. butter, chilled
8 oz. flour
pinch of salt
1 beaten egg
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
2 T lemon juice
Instructions
1
To get an extra flaky and delicious crust, it’s important to have exactly the right amount of ingredients. We used a food scale, to weigh the dry and wet ingredients. If you don’t have a food scale, you can carefully measure the ingredients using measuring cups.
2
For our crust we used vegetable shortening as well as butter. The shortening won’t melt as quickly as the butter, but doesn’t taste nearly as delicious.
3
In order to compensate for the lack of flavor we’ll use chilled butter. Be sure that your fat is cold otherwise your pastry dough won’t be flaky and tender.
4
Before adding the fat to our flour we used the dough blade on our food processor to mix the flour and salt thoroughly.
5
Cut the fat into chunks and add to the food processor. Use the pulse feature on your food processor so the fat doesn’t melt from the friction. If the dough made in the food processor doesn’t cooperate than you may need to cut the dough by hand with a fork.
6
Slowly add chilled water to the butter and flour mixture until a ball forms.
7
Looks a bit like cookie dough doesn’t it?
8
Dust your work surface with flour to prevent any “sticky” situations.
9
Shape the dough into two discs of roughly the same size. Wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate them.
10
The pears we used were bosc pears but you can use any fruit you’d like. These pears were on sale 😉
11
The essential tools used for preparing our pears are an 8″ chefs knife, a melon baller, and a vegetable peeler.
12
Our syrup was made from boiling the water and sugar until it reached soft ball stage. When making this syrup take note that hot sugar can literally melt your skin off, so be extremely careful.
13
After the pears are peeled, slice them in half and pit them with the melon baller.
14
Thinly slice the pears and soak the slices in the cooled syrup. Once the pears are flexible arrange them as shown on your pastry dough.
15
The dough should be rolled thin enough to fold. Approximately 1/8in thick.
16
Pinch and fold the dough all the way around the edges. Brush the edges with a beaten egg and transfer to a 425° oven. Bake until the edges are golden brown.
17
Best served warm with a hot cup of tea! If you don’t manage to eat them all in one sitting, you can also store the leftovers sealed in Tupperware in the fridge.
Categories:Dessert
Wed to a Chef
