Caramelised pear pie

These pies enclose sweet, caramelised pears in a homemade buttery pie crust. A whipped tahini mascarpone adds a welcome creamy and nutty flavour to the tart sweetness of the pie. Add a handful of fresh blackberries on the side.

Caramelised pear pie Credit: Kitti Gould

• serves

  4

• prep

  10 minutes

• cook

  35 minutes

• difficulty

  Ace

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Ingredients

Tahini cream

• 3 leaves gelatine, bronze strength
• 500 ml mascarpone
• 100 ml honey
• 50 g tahini

Pie filling

• 1 kg packham pears
• 1 litre water
• 1 tsp citric acid
• 50 g caster sugar

Pear purée

• 500 g pear trimmings
• ¼ cup (60 ml) pear juice or water
• 1 vanilla bean
• 60 g butter
• 50 g sugar

Sweet pastry

• 500 g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 100 g icing sugar
• 250 g unsalted butter, cold
• 2 oranges, finely zested (optional)
• 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
• 2 large free-range eggs, plus extra egg wash to brush the pastry
• 50 ml milk

To serve

• blackberries, room temperature

Chilled resting time: 30 minutes

Instructions

1. To make the tahini cream, place the gelatine leaves in a medium bowl of water to rehydrate. Place the mascarpone, honey and tahini in a large mixing bowl and mix until well combined. Remove some of the cream and heat with the drained gelatine leaves. Mix well, return to the cold cream mixture, stir well and refrigerate until needed.
2. For the pie filling, peel and dice the pears into a 2 mm dice. Reserve all the pear trimmings – core, skin, offcuts. In a large mixing bowl, combine the water, citric acid and 500 g diced pear (to prevent oxidisation) while you work on the other elements.
3. For the pear purée, in a small saucepan, combine all pear trimmings and leftover diced pear with the pear juice (or water), vanilla, butter and sugar. Cook until tender. Remove from the heat, discard the vanilla bean and pass the pear, skins and all through a fine mesh sieve into a medium mixing bowl. You should have approximately 300 g purée. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until cool.
4. For the sweet pastry, sift the flour and icing sugar into a large mixing bowl from a height. Dice the butter and use your fingertips to gently work into the flour mixture until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the orange zest, vanilla and mix. Beat the egg with the milk, then gently add to the mixture and work it together until it forms a ball of dough. Do not overwork the dough – you should be able to see visible chunks of butter. Gently flour the dough ball, then pat into a 2.5 cm thick disc, then wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes before using. This pastry can also be made in the food processor.
5. 10 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan-forced). To finish the caramelised pear, drain the diced pear. Bring a large frying pan to high heat with the caster sugar and cook until the sugar begins to caramelise. Add the diced pear and toss until well coated and caramelised. Take care to not overcook the pear to retain some freshness and crunch.
6. Lightly grease 4 holes of a 6-hole, ¾ cup-capacity Texas muffin pan. Roll out the pastry to 4 mm thick and using a 13 cm round cutter, cut 4 rounds from pastry. Using a 9 cm round cutter, cut 4 rounds from remaining pastry. Line the muffin holes with larger pastry rounds, using a pastry ball to push it down into the tin.
7. Fill the tart cases with a mixture of caramelised pear and pear purée. Brush the edges with beaten egg, then top with smaller pastry rounds to form a lid. Cut a slit in the top to allow the steam to escape. Brush the tops with egg, sprinkle with demerara sugar and bake for 20 minutes or until golden and heated through. Stand for 10 minutes before serving.
8. Whip the tahini cream, ensuring there are no lumps before using. Serve the caramelised pear pies warm, with a quenelle of mascarpone tahini cream and fresh blackberries on the side.

Note

• Caramelising the pear balances the bitterness, sourness and sweetness alongside the tahini. This recipe is a no-waste recipe. Everything is used and we use raw and cooked pear to give us a great pie.

Photography by Kitti Gould.

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Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.

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Eyes On the Pies

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