Quick Pear Tart

It was saturday afternoon and my little missy was taking a nap. I was bored and didn't want to watch TV or read. So I thought of baking something. I prefer baking while she is not around as she loves to peep into the oven every time I open it. I had some pear wanted to try to make something out of it. I had seen Ina Garten on her show, 'Barefoot Contessa'. demonstrate french apple tart , a few weeks back. I basically adapted this recipe from her, but made changes to my convenience. She made her own pastry, but i didn't have so much time in hand. By the way I wasn't intending to blog about this recipe after the incident I had baking this :),  but than I thought its worth sharing some mishaps at time. Read the entire blog to know............

What You need:
Half Puff pastry sheet
1 Pear
2 tablespoon Apricot spread
2 tablespoon Apple juice
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoon cold butter cubed


How it's made:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Cut the pear into half length wise and core. You can peel the pear, but I left the peel on. Cut into thin slices(about 1/4inch).Thaw and cut the pastry sheet to desired size. I used half of pastry sheet. Line a cookie tray with baking parchment paper. Place the pastry sheet over it. make some some slits in between with as sharp knife to avoid the pastry sheet from puffing up. Place the cut pear slices overlapping each other on the pastry sheet, You can place it straight like I did or diagonally for a better look. Sprinkle it with sugar and cold butter cubes. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the edges turn brown.

Meanwhile heat the apricot spread in a saucepan along with apple juice until it forms a nice smooth mixture. Take the baked pastry sheet out of the oven and apply the apricot spread onto the top of the pear and pastry with a pastry brush.

Cut into pieces and serve the tart warm or cool.

It tastes good and I shared a slice of it with my friend, who liked it too. How couldn't it taste good with butter n sugar baked with pear.

Blunders I made - I used wax paper instead of parchment to line the baking sheet, and guess what would have happened, It started smoking and all the smoke alarms went off in the house. It took 30 minutes to silence the alarm with neighbor's help, since I wasn't tall enough to reach the ceiling (even with a ladder ) to silence it. So please any out there who loves experimenting like me never ever use wax paper for baking. Lesson well learned............