Pear and cardamom tarte tatin

This post is exciting, because I actually have a proper recipe for you all (and by you all, I mean the 3 people that probably don't bother reading this anymore. But oh well). It's my mum's birthday tomorrow, and she isn't a huge fan of cake, so I decided to make her an alternative instead. It's quite difficult baking for her, as she isn't always a fan of classic yummy things that people normally like. Luckily I didn't have to think too hard, because I was stalking, er, browsing on facebook and I found a recipe for pear and cardamom upside down tart, which I thought sounded nice and suitably unusual. It also sounded a lot like tarte tatin, which is one of my favourite desserts, and I have made it a few times, so I decided to modify recipe to make it more like pear and cardamom tarte tartin, as I thought shortcrust pastry would keep better than the puff pastry specified by the original recipe.

Not pretty, but pretty yummy

Making tarte tatin is pretty simple. Effectively it's just caramelised fruit put in a flan dish, with the pastry laid on top. After it's baked in the oven, you turn it out on a plate, so there's no hassle of having to bake a pastry case beforehand. The method of preparation means it's not the prettiest dessert in the world, but the taste makes up for it. Don't be afraid of making your own shortcrust or puff pastry, it's seriously easy, and once you've done it you'll realise there's no need to buy frozen pastry ever again. I also decided to make some toffee to put on the top. I was going to make spun sugar (those fancy sugar threads you get on desserts) out of it, but then changed my mind in case it made too much of a mess. I later burnt my finger on the molten sugar whilst trying to pour it on the tart and it hurt like a bitch. My finger is still stinging like crazy :( bear in mind this happened at midnight while my mother was sleeping, so I had to dance around the kitchen screaming silent expletives until I came to my senses and stuck it under a cold tap. So yeah, as long as you excise some caution when dealing with boiling hot sugar, this is a pretty hassle free recipe. If you don't like the idea of pears and/or cardamom, you can swap them for more traditional apples, peaches, pineapple or any other fruit you fancy.

Pear and cardamom tarte tatin

125g sugar
3 tbsp cold water
10 cardamom pods
4-6 pears, cored and quartered lengthways
100g butter
1 quantity of shorcrust pastry (see below)

1. Put sugar, water and butter into a deep frying pan. Stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat and bring to a rapid simmer.

2. Remove seeds from cardamom pods and crush. As the sugar begins to colour, sprinkle over the cardamom and add the pears. Stir occasionally and cook for about 10 minutes, until the sugar starts to turn golden brown and the pears start to become soft.

3. Pour pears and sugar into a flan dish, and leave to cool for a few minutes.

4. Meanwhile, roll out your pastry into a circle which is just larger than the flan dish. Put the pastry over the pears, tucking it down the sides of the pan to enclose the fruit.

5. Bake in the oven at 400F/Gas mark 6 until the pastry is golden. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before turning out onto a plate.

6. Serve with creme fraiche

Mmm, caramelised pears
And...I will let Delia explain how to make the shortcrust pastry ;)

Good luck, and remember: approach hot sugar with extreme caution!

Bonus "isn't my cat cute" photo

My cat, Rudy. Isn't he cute?!

P.S. If anyone is reading this and knows a bit about html, please help me. Blogger photo uploader sucks and I don't know why it keeps inserting so many line breaks even though I edit the html so it shouldn't do :(