CARAMEL PEAR PIE

In my opinion, you can’t go wrong with pie. Get yourself an apple, a rhubarb, a chicken and mushroom, whatever you fancy and bob’s your uncle. Easy. A little while ago, I took to the kitchen to use up some ingredients and took my love for caramel (and pies) to a whole new level. What I thought would be quite tricky, turned out to be quite a chilled Friday night making dessert for the family.

WHAT YOU NEED – 

The recipe I followed on Jo Cooks used cup measurements which is usually completely okay as long as you use the same cup.

2 1/2 cup flour

1 cup of cubed cold butter

1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar

8 tbsp cold water

12 pears, peeled and sliced etc

Juice of a lime

NB: I cheated and used a dreaaaamy caramel spread they sell in Waitrose supermarkets but if you’re looking to make the good stuff from scratch – you’ll need the following

½ cup butter
3 tbsp flour
½ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup water
½ tsp cinnamon

THE HOW – 

Get the butter in the freezer for 20 minutes to ensure it’s nice and cold.

Add flour, salt and sugar to a mixing bowl and pulse with a mixer.

Add the cold butter to the flour and pulse a few times until the mixture looks like peas (I actually found it a lot more efficient to use my fingers)

Pour in the ice cold water one tablespoon at a time and combine, the dough should start to come together.

Place on our floury work surface and roll out two discs, covering in cling film. Keep in the fridge for at least hour.

Whist the dough is setting in the fridge, peel, core and slice your pears and put in a bowl to one side. Toss with the lime juice.

(This is where you would add your caramel ingredients to a pan and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. I however, just heated mine a little and put aside)

Preheat the oven to around 180 degrees.

Take the pastry from the fridge and roll out the discs so that they cover the diameter of your pie tin (around 12inches) Arrange the pastry in the dish and brush with egg whites or milk.

Add the pears and caramel sauce to the dish and cut out lattice strips with your second disc of pastry. Arrange nicely over the pears and brush with the remaining egg whites/milk.

Bake in the oven for 45 mins and enjoy!

So yummy and made such a change from cake. I perhaps shouldn’t have cheated and made the caramel from scratch or perhaps shouldn’t have put as much sauce in the pie as I did, as it did turn out to be quite runny. But, equally enjoyed and the pastry was good. A very good festive option for all of the family.

LOVELY JUBLY.

R.