PEAR PIE

I love to cook, but the truth is that desserts are not my forte. I usually get my husband to make them. He is very good. However, I had some pears that needed to be eaten in a hurry and found this recipe. It is really nice served with vanilla ice-cream or just cream.

INGREDIENTS
Pastry
300g plain flour
pinch of salt
125g caster sugar
125g butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg
1 egg yolk
few drops vanilla essence
2-3 tsp water

Filling
4 Tbsp apricot jam
60g amaretti biscuits, crumbled
800g - 1kg pears, peeled and cored
1 tsp ground cinnamon
90g raisins
brown sugar to sprinkle
Sifted icing sugar, for sprinkling

METHOD
To make the pastry, sift the flour and salt on to a large bowl.

Make a well in the centre and add the sugar, butter, egg, egg yolk, vanilla essence and most of the water.

Using your fingers, gradually work the flour into the other ingredients to form a smooth dough, adding more water if necessary.
Wrap the pastry and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
Line the bottom of a 25cm square cake tin with baking paper.

Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Roll out 3/4 of the pastry in between to sheets of baking paper.

Transfer rolled pastry to the cake tin and trim if necessary.

To make the filling, spread the jam over the base.

I made my own amaretti biscuits. They are easy to do and very yummy. Click here for the recipe.

Crush the amaretti biscuits and scramble on top of the jam.

Slice the pears very thinly. Arrange over the biscuits in the pastry case. 

Sprinkle with cinnamon, then with raisins and, finally, with the brown sugar.

Roll out a thin sausage shape using a third of the remaining pastry and place around the edge of the pie. Roll the remainder into thin sausages and arrange in a lattice over the pie, 4 or 5 strips in each direction, attaching them to the strip around the edge.

Cook in the preheated oven, for about 40 - 50 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. (You can see here that my pastry skills are very limited!) 😅😅

Cool, then serve warm or chilled, sprinkled with sifted icing sugar.

Serves 6