Cranberry Pear Galette

I love pears – they have this sweet and mellow flavour that works alone or pairs well with others… you could say Pears are the neutral party in the fruit world. They just get along with everyone! Plus there are SO MANY types! On a recent everyday grocery run, I came across these white asian pears. They look like apples (round and the item is indented in the top), but have the colouring and flavour of a pear, and I bought them. I was originally going to make this a Cranberry Apple Galette but when I saw these golden gems in the produce section, plans changed.

The Ingredients:

• 2 sheets of prepared pastry (you can always make it, but this really is a MAJOR time saver).
• 2 large White Asian Pears
• 1 cup Cranberries (fresh is best, but frozen will work – defrost before and drain any liquid)
• 1 tbsp flour + 1 tsp water (for Cranberries)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• juice + zest of 1/2 a lemon
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg beaten + a little milk (for egg wash)
• 2 tbsp butter, melted
• coarse sugar for sprinkling

The How-to:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. Slice pears into thin strips and place in a medium/large bowl.
3. In a small bowl add the cranberries, flour & water. Gently stir everything together so the flour coats the cranberries but you don’t want them to break open.
4. Pour the cranberries, and half of the flour mixture into the large bowl with the pears.
5. Add the brown sugar, lemon zest and juice, cinnamon, vanilla and nutmeg to the bowl. Stir so everything is coated. Set aside.
6. Taking one sheet of pastry at a time, slice the pastry sheet in half (so you have two rectangles). Place one rectangle in the fridge so it stays cold.
7. Flour your surface and rolling pin really well, and roll your pastry into a rough circle (folding over sides as necessary – but remember this is a galette. It’s rustic. No need for this to be overly precise or perfect).
   
8. Once you have the general shape you want, place on a parchment lined baking sheet.
9. In the centre of your pastry, brush melted butter and add 3/4 cup of the cranberry-pear mixture. Fold the edges of the pastry into the centre so you create a ‘basket’.
10. Once everything is contained, brush with egg wash (beat one egg with about 1 tsp milk). Sprinkle with sugar.
11. Repeat with the 3 remaining rectangles.
12. Bake in the oven for about 25-30 minutes or until the centre fruit is bubbling, and the edges are a beautiful golden colour.
13. Serve warm from the oven – and to kick it up a notch, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

There are definitely a few more steps then some of my other recipes, but once you start everything it really does go by easily. The store-bought pastry really makes this a wonderful dessert to serve to guests or your family since it helps cut down on the time to make this. The best part? It’s rustic, so that means you really don’t have to be perfect through out any of the steps of this, but it looks like you made this grand dessert and everyone will definitely enjoy.

This does make four 5-inch sized galettes, and I personally find each is worth sharing (since they are a little on the larger size). To make these more ‘per guest’, cut each sheet of pastry into 4 rather then 2. Your cooking time won’t change that much, but i would say start checking on them at the 20 minute mark rather then the 25 minute mark. And the filling size would be about 1/3 – 1/2 cup max since you don’t want everything to over flow. That would give you 8 perfectly portioned sized desserts!

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