Pear galette with dried fruit and nuts

Remember when I made this quiche? Well, I ended up with quite a bit of leftover dough, and it seemed like a shame to throw it away, considering all the butter effort and more butter time that went into it - Julia Child's pastry dough should not go wasted! So I rolled the scraps into a ball and stuck it in the freezer, figuring I could use it for something else later. A few days later, I found myself with an excess of fresh pears, and decided to use the pastry dough to make some small pear tarts. I didn't want any fussy shaping or blind baking, so I decided to go with rustic free-form galettes, which don't require a special pan and could easily be made into a customized size based on how much dough I had. I also decided to add honey, dried fruit (cranberries and raisins), and nuts to the pear filling, inspired by a baked apple recipe from Around My French Table that I recently tried. I wasn't thrilled with how the baked apples came out, but I loved the combination of flavors and textures that came from the dried fruit and nuts, and thought they would add a nice dimension to the galettes.

These galettes came out so, so good! The pastry was flaky and crisp, even on the bottom of the galettes, and the fruit/nut filling had a fantastic blend of flavors and textures. I especially liked the way the tart dried cranberries worked with the sweet fruit and honey. I am never going to throw out pastry dough scraps again - in fact, I might make dough just to keep in the freezer for impromptu desserts like these!

How have you been using fall fruit?

Pear tarte tatin

 
This week's Fall Fest theme ingredient is pears, and I decided to try making a pear tarte tatin. Tarte tatin consists of fruit (usually apples) caramelized in butter and sugar, then topped with a pastry crust and baked. When done, it is flipped over so that the fruit is on top. It's not as fussy as traditional tarts - since it is baked upside down, you don't have to worry about the crust getting soggy, which means no blind baking (yay!). And the presentation is supposed to be rustic, so you don't have to worry about making it look perfect. That being said, tarte tatin can still be tricky to make, as I discovered with this one.

This was my first time making tarte tatin. I had a couple problems - the recipe said to cook the pears in butter and sugar until the mixture turned a golden caramel color...but it was hard to assess the color with everything cooking in a black cast iron pan. Also, during baking, the caramel oozed over the sides of the pastry and burned a bit, as you might be able to tell from the photos. Maybe I didn't do a good enough job of tucking in the sides of the crust? Maybe I didn't cook the caramel the right amount on the stovetop? I'm not really sure what went wrong. But in any case, it still tasted pretty good! The crust was nice and flaky, and the fruit was sweet and scented with cinnamon.

Recipe notes: I was in a bit of a rush when I made this, so I chilled the dough in the freezer instead of the fridge to speed things up. The recipe called for Bosc pears, but I only had an Asian pear and a Bartlett, so I used those instead. It came out absolutely fine - they were both firm enough to hold their shape during cooking. Also, my pears were huge, so I cut them into quarters or eighths instead of halves.

I know that some of the other Fall Fest participants are more experienced with tarte tatin, so please let me know if you have any tips!