Quick and Simple: Jacques Pepin’s Bartlett Pears in Puff Pastry

For this easy dessert, Jacques Pepin covers Bartlett pear halves with frozen puff pastry and serves them right in the gratin dish in which they are baked. You can use apples instead of pears, if you prefer.

Do you need to core pears before cooking?

According to the Guardian: Cutting out the core of the bartlett pear helps the fruit to cook through, and also saves the guest from scooping it up by mistake.

Do you need to roll out puff pastry?

Per the Kitchn: puff pastry should be rolled out to ensure the dough has an even thickness.

Jacques Pépin and the Art of Making the Most of It: The New York Times book review of Jacques Pépin Quick & Simple

Serves 6 Print

Quick and Simple: Bartlett Pears in Puff Pastry

Print Recipe

If something tastes good, it doesn’t matter whether it is `authentic’ or prepared `correctly’–what works, works. For this easy dessert, I cover pear halves with frozen puff pastry and serve them right in the gratin dish in which they are baked. You can use apples instead of pears, if you prefer.

• Total Time: 50 minutes
• Yield: 6 1x

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

6 tablespoons sugar

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 large ripe Bartlett pears (about 8 ounces each)

3 tablespoons lemon juice

1 sheet frozen puff pastry (about 8 ounces; ½ package), partially defrosted

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/3 cup water

Crème fraîche or sour cream, for serving (optional)

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Instructions

1. Pears: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together and set aside. Peel the pears and cut them lengthwise in half. Remove the core from each half and arrange the pear halves cut side down in one layer in a gratin dish. Sprinkle with the lemon juice and half the cinnamon-sugar mixture.
2. Puff Pastry: Unfold the sheet of puff pastry and cut it apart at the seams to get 3 pieces approximately 10 inches by 3 inches. Cut each of these crosswise in half to create 6 pieces. Lay a pastry piece on top of each pear half, and as the pastry starts to defrost a little more and relax slightly, press the pieces gently around the pears so they take on the shape of the pear halves. Spread the butter on the pastry and sprinkle the remaining cinnamon-sugar mixture on top.
3. Bake: Place the gratin dish on a cookie sheet and bake for about 30 minutes, until the pastry is browning nicely and the juices around the pears are bubbling and caramelized. Pour the water around the pears and return them to the oven for 5 minutes. The water will melt the caramel and create a sauce. Serve the pears warm, with crème fraîche or sour cream, if desired.

Notes

 

Excerpted from JACQUES PÉPIN QUICK & SIMPLE © 2020 by Jacques Pépin. Photography © 2020 by Tom Hopkins. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved. Illustrations by Jacques Pepin

• Author: Jacques Pepin
• Prep Time: 15
• Cook Time: 35
• Category: Dessert
• Method: baking
• Cuisine: American

Nutrition

• Serving Size: 6

Keywords: bartlett pears, quick, simple, healthy, puff pastry, pears, apples

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