I promised tart last week, and I shall deliver tart now. You have no idea how it thrills me to say that.
I’m still not feeling fantastically articulate. Here are the tart Cliffs’ Notes.
- I’m new at pastry, as my house has tiled counters and I’ve had nowhere to roll it out. A few months ago my mum bought me a kitchen trolley from Ikea and a whole new world of kneading and rolling has been opened up to me.
- Pears: I love them.
- You knead the pastry! Knead it! And there is no chilling involved!
- I love my new, heavy Chicago Metallic baking sheets in a manner not tolerated in several religious communities.
- At last count there are 2,074 spam comments sitting in the filter. If you’ve commented before you should be fine, but if you’ve attempted to comment lately and your comment hasn’t come up I’m terribly sorry. Urgent queries can be sent to rachael dot kendrick at gmail dot com.
Pear and Ginger Galette
Pastry recipe from the Rose Bakery Cookbook
- 2 pears
- 2-3 tablespoons ginger marmalade
- 250g flour
- 60g sugar
- 160g butter, 10 minutes out of the fridge, cut into pieces
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Put the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl and fork together. Cut the butter into the flour using a pastry blender or two knives until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre of the flour-and-butter mixture and add the egg and yolk. Using one hand bring the dry and wet ingredients together. You might have to add a little flour or water, depending on how things are going.
Flour the work surface, you know, the flat one, and turn the dough out. Knead a few times until smooth and homogenous. Shape into a ball, then roll out flat on your flat surface into a circle, flouring as necessary. Transfer to a baking papered tray.
Peel and halve the pears. Scoop out the cores using a teaspoon. Slice thinly and keep the halves tightly armadilloed together. Spread the marmalade jam in a circle on the pastry, then arrange the pear slices tastefully over the jam circle. Fold the overhanging pastry over the pears.
A better woman would make some kind of syrup glaze, but I didn’t. Bake for 30-40 minutes until the pears are tender. Eat and pray that the muses will descend and grant you the gift of clear, coherent speech and writing again.
