Pear Tart

This puff pastry pear tart is a gloriously simple dessert. You probably have the ingredients in your pantry right now.

I’ve never been a huge baker, and prefer fruit-based desserts over super-sweet options, so this pear tart is pear-fect. And on that note, here’s a poem about the pear tree’s perfection.

Pear Tree

Silver dust
lifted from the earth,
higher than my arms reach,
you have mounted,
O silver,
higher than my arms reach
you front us with great mass;

no flower ever opened
so staunch a white leaf,
no flower ever parted silver
from such rare silver;

O white pear,
your flower-tufts
thick on the branch
bring summer and ripe fruits
in their purple hearts.

by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) from Sea Garden (1916), accessed via Project Gutenberg

If you take a look around my site, you’ll see I’m a big fan of puff pastry desserts. Here are some lemon curd tartlets, a puff pastry take on a pineapple upside down cake, and jammy tarts I’m urged to make at least once a month.

“As for trees, it is our wish that they shall have various kinds of apple, pear, plum, sorb, medlar, chestnut and peach; quince, hazel, almond, mulberry, laurel, pine, fig, nut and cherry
trees of various kinds …Of pears they are to have three or four kinds, those that keep well, sweet ones, cooking pears and the late-ripening ones.”

-Capitulare de villis, c.771-800, document of rules for managing [king of the Franks and Christian emperor of the West] Charlemagne’s estates https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/attachments/261709/pdf/the-Capitulare-De-Villis-Handout

Pear Tart

Peary Nice.

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Prep Time:10 minutes mins

Cook Time:25 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Keyword: dessert, fruit dessert, puff pastry

Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 2 sheets frozen puff pastry, defrosted Approx 25 x 25 cm (9.8")
• 2 pears, firm but not hard. Alternative: sweet apple
• 2 tsp jam – whatever you have (I used blackberry)
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 2 tbsp sugar, mix of superfine caster sugar and brown sugar works well You do not need to use all, you can adjust to taste.
• squeeze of lemon juice

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 210℃/375℉. Line two baking trays with baking paper.
• Wash, core and slice your pears (or apple) thinly. Toss in a little of the lemon juice.
• Brush the defrosted puff pastry squares with the jam, leaving space at the outer edge. Fold and lightly pinch together pastry edges to make a border.
• Lay your fruit however you please around the pastry.
• Brush pastry and fruit with melted butter.
• Sprinkle sugar over pastry, including edges and fruit. Use as much or as little as you like.
• Bake for about 25 minutes but keep an eye on it. The melted butter will cause the pastry to brown quickly. The fruit will release juices but don't worry unless it starts swimming, in which case you can gently spoon some out.
• To ensure bottom is cooked, try gently to see if you can moving the tart across the baking paper. Cut each pastry into four pieces. Serve with cream or ice cream.