It’s Murphy’s Law but the gnarled old pear tree on the corner of the house, with its scabby leaves, generally produces better fruit than the ones we planted in the orchard.
We were told it was a hard cooking variety but picked and left in a basket, the pears ripen into honeyed perfection, ideal for this recipe.
These individual tarts are a nifty make-ahead dessert. Prepare the topping, bake the pastry and assemble at the last minute for a classy-looking pud.
Cooking the pastry between two baking sheets keeps it flat and crisp, almost biscuity. I was cooking for four but one sheet of ready-rolled puff pastry should give you six 12cm diameter discs. You could cut smaller circles and use them as a canape base, perhaps topped with pesto and sliced tomatoes.
Pear Galettes
Ingredients:
2 small ripe pears per person
Juice of 1/2-1 lemon, to taste
1 tbsp butter
2-3 tbsp honey, to taste
1 sheet ready-rolled puff pastry, preferably all-butter
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6.
Cut 4-6 discs (or whatever shape you like) from the pastry: I used a 12cm diameter bowl as a guide. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment.
Top with another piece of parchment and place a second baking sheet on top. Cook for 18-25 minutes (check as your oven will be different to mine) until cooked and golden, then set aside to cool. If you’re making this more than an hour or two in advance, store in an air-tight tin layered with baking parchment.
Squeeze the lemon juice into a bowl. Peel, core and slice the pears and drop them into the lemon juice, tossing gently to coat.
Melt the butter and honey together in a pan. Add the pears and lemon juice and cook briefly over a high heat, stirring gently, until the syrup has reduced and thickened. Pour onto a plate, spread out to cool, and cover and refrigerate once cold.
To assemble, put a sheet of pastry onto each plate, arrange the pears neatly on top, and serve with quennelles (if you’re feeling fancy) or dollops (if you’re not) of ice cream or crème fraîche.
Nice and easy, but delicious.
Thanks, Dave. Glad you like it.
Yum!, real fruit, with imperfections and flavour…
Fantastic flavour! Thanks, Sandra.
Love the idea of the pastry discs!! I’m already thinking of different toppings! 😉 x
Thanks, Deb. You can also glaze with egg wash and dust them with icing sugar before sandwiching and baking but I thought this was sweet enough. Today galettes, tomorrow feuillete! Well, maybe not tomorrow …
Nice. Love your header pic by the way x
Thanks, Margaret. Messy but fun. 🙂
Oh! It’s changed. It was moody and misty, and now it’s chirrupy and bright with – er – rape? mustard?
Oh, that header pic, thought you meant the one on the hazelnut cake. Yes, I have a series of Suffolk countryside pix as blog headers that revolve automatically. I really must do something a bit autumnal. Lx
Oh I SEE. It’s a slide show. I never noticed before…… Duh.
It’s fairly new, just since I did the re-design. xx
When I was a child in Germany we had a peartree like that. The pears 🍐 ripened weeks after they were picked . They were delicious. Your little tarts look very good.
Thanks, Gerlinde. It’s lovely to have fruits growing in the garden. I’ve bottled the rest with honey, white wine and saffron, so we can enjoy them in the winter. Yum. 🙂
Lovely, I am getting lots of pears in my (newly-reinstated) veg box at the moment, such a treat. I am currently immersed in researching suitable varieties of quinces and medlars for the allotment. One day I will have an orchard…
Gosh, are you allowed trees on your allotment? We got told off when we planted a tiny apple on ours for fear it would overshadow our neighbours’ very weedy plot. I could look up our quince variety but it’ll grow into a whopper …
I’m not sure there’s anything in the rules (should probably check…) and there’s certainly a few fruit trees lurking around. I was planning on getting dwarf-y ones anyway though, so as not to upset the (Italian) neighbours 😉
Prolly just our old allotments, they were quite small in all fairness.
I’d be a dollop person myself. This is the perfect recipe for dolloping.
I’m more of a dolloper too, mostly because I’m ruddy useless at quennelling. Is that even a word?
Probably not. I can do it when I’m not under pressure. I’m always under pressure when serving.
Yum! Pear galletes are a mid-week classic dessert for a reason – just the best combination of flavours, especially tinged with honey and lemon as you have 🙂
I’ll pretend I didn’t see the shop bought pastry 😉
Thanks, honey! And haha, point taken, but who in their right mind is going to make home-made puff on a school night? Especially when you’re doing the children’s homework for them (but you never do that, I know).
well, to be fair I’d never make it on a school night… but then I have a stash of home made blocks in the freezer 🙂
I’m quite well aware I’m not of a right mind!! Head full of biscuit crumbs 🙂
I am speechless with awe. Really. *doffs hat*
Very pretty. Love the presentation!
Thank you, Mimi!
Great tip for using baking sheets to keep the puff pastry well-behaved, so to speak. These galettes look wonderful and I bet they taste even better. Back in Michigan, there was an old apple tree at the back of the property, just before the woods. It was a shabby looking thing, more dead than alive, but its apples, those that the deer left, made the best pies. It’s been well over a decade since that tree fell during a storm but I still remember those pies. 🙂
The ones that got away are always the best. 🙂