AMAZING Pear & Ginger Tarte Tatin!

Pear tarte tatin is one of the simplest, most delicious ways to use up seasonal pears. Corella pears, fresh ginger, vanilla beans and butter puff pastry are used in this recipe that is so simple you'll be serving up this classic French dessert before you even know it!

Tarte tatin is an upside down tart where the fruit is baked on the bottom of the pan or tin and then the pastry is baked on top. This means that the pastry ends up flakey and crisp and the fruit saucy. To serve you turn the tarte upside down so that they glistening fruit shows up on top. Usually apples are used in tarte tatin but pears are superb in it too. The advantage to using pears is that they are soft enough so that you don't have to pre-cook them like you do apples.

How To Make Tarte Tatin Simple but DELICIOUS:

1 - Tarte tatins are such a standby dessert for me whenever I have some fruit that I want to turn into dessert or a vegetable I want to turn into a lunch. Other fruit that work are /2011/09/21/tarte-tatin/, plums, pineapple, peaches, strawberry, bananas and even savoury tarte tatin is amazing - try this fennel tarte tatin, tomato tarte tatin, beetroot and feta tarte tatin or French onion tarte tatin!

2 - My tarte tatin is made without using a caramel. Instead we use golden syrup that mimics the caramel made perfectly and turns this into something very simple.

3 - I made this pear tarte tatin with ginger and vanilla because those two flavours go really well with pears. You can use just vanilla if you prefer. Other flavours that go well with pears that you can add to this tarte tatin are: rosemary, cinnamon, almonds, citrus and chocolate. You can also add a splash of our favourite liqueur like Grand Marnier, kirsch, brandy and ice or dessert wine just when you add the butter.

4 - Just pleeease make sure you use butter puff pastry, not the regular kind as that has margarine in it and not butter and the butter one tastes so much better.

I brought this tarte tatin over for dinner at Sammie and David's house. They had moved into a new apartment for their last few months in Australia before they relocate back to the UK. We had them over at our new house and then it was months in the planning to come over to theirs because life is like that - our last visit had to be postponed because I had RSV and we didn't want anyone else to get sick. So the dinner was a long time coming and we were so excited when the date finally came. Sammie had an array of delicious curries to serve us - 5 to be exact. I brought some cheeses for our cheese platter (a 48 month aged Comte, a Valtellina Casera DOP stagionato and a Moondara honey and pistachio cream cheese) and I also brought this pear tarte tatin as our dessert. I baked it that afternoon and then placed it on this tray and then Sammie just heated it up in the oven to make the pastry warm again and we served it with ice cream.

This was actually our second dessert too because before that we had birthday cake. My birthday was actually in May but it took a while to get this dinner together. Nobody ever makes me birthday cakes and Mr NQN definitely does not have the instincts to buy one so it was such a treat getting one of Sammie's classic birthday cakes. She loves baking from the AWW birthday cake book and she made me a pink poodle cake because we both love dogs. I closed my eyes as Sammie brought out the huge cake board and opened them up when she told me to.

There was Penny the Pink Poodle covered in marshmallows and looking an absolute treat. Even the pink candle matched Penny! The cake itself was wonderful - so soft and buttery and made with buttermilk and she had added three types of jams in the centre which was so lovely. Sammie handed out teaspoons for our dessert and said, "I always like eating dessert with a teaspoon because that way it lasts longer," which is really a brilliant way to look at it. I ended up eating a paw and the tail at dinner it was so good and then when we got home I took to the body with a spoon even though I had eaten a four course dinner!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you have a favourite fruit or vegetable for a tarte tatin? And what was your last birthday cake like? And do you ever eat something extra after a big dinner?

Pear & Ginger Tarte Tatin

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Serves: 6

• 1/3 cup/100g/3.5ozs golden syrup

• 2 thin slices fresh ginger, peeled and finely sliced into matchsticks

• 1 vanilla bean, split in half

• 550g/1.2lbs Corella pears

• 2 tablespoons butter, cubed and cold

• 1 1/4 sheets butter puff pastry, thawed in the fridge

Step 1 - Take a 20cm/8inch springform pan and line on the base and spray the sides with oil spray. Place this tray on top of another tray with a lip to catch any leaks from the springform tin. Preheat oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.5. Warm the golden syrup (10 seconds in the microwave is good) and spread over the base using a brush to spread it to the edge. Add the ginger and the seeds from each vanilla bean half on top but reserve the beans for decoration at the end.

Step 2 - Then peel the pears and remove the cores (a melon baller works well). Place domed side down and repeat with the rest of the pears. Scatter butter over the pears and then fold the puff pastry sheets over them tucking in the sides-I place the 1/4 sheet in the centre just to give it a bit more puff. If the puff pastry is still quite cold bake immediately. Otherwise refrigerate the tarte tatin for 20 minutes until the pastry is firm again. Bake for 35 minutes or until pastry is golden. Remove from the oven and cool for 3-4 minutes. Then place a serving tray over the top and swiftly turn upside down scraping any caramel sauce that remains. Remove the tin and decorate with the reserved split vanilla bean. Serve with vanilla or ginger ice cream.