On a rainy day..

It was a rainy day... and what better day then to spend the afternoon in the kitchen!
It was pouring and i mean POURING. Think about it... sitting inside on a cold rainy day rugged up in front of the fireplace eating a warm pear tart, caramel and ice-cream!
Does that excite you at all? Well that's what my day was looking like..

After my mum kindly took a trip to the supermarket (in the pouring rain), to get the ingredients (she also went to get some things for herself, I'm not that horrible to make her get it just for me!), I then began the challenge.

On the show they gave the contestant 1 hr 15 mins to complete this task, but I thought I could give myself 1 hr 30 mins, simply because I would not have 2 ovens to cook my things in and because I'm just generous.

Step 1: Make the caramel - problem: I may have let it cool a bit too much before I added the butter and cream which made it harden reallllyyy quickly. Luckily I managed to save it by putting it back on the heat for a few seconds to re-melt all the sugars

Step 2: make the apple puree - It's as simple as chucking the apples, vanilla seeds, water and sugar into a pot and letting it simmer for 10 minutes. Then I pureed it and pressed it through a sieve (this makes it really smooth)

Step 3: Make the base. I will admit, I cheated a bit. I bought the already-made rolled out puff pastry. So I saved myself about 3 mins from not having to roll it out, but I've decided that I'm allowed 1 cheat, and 1 cheat only :) (I really was very generous today!)

Step 4: Make the marzipan mixture to put on the puff-pastry, and top with sliced pears, and bake in oven.
Step 5: Poach the pears in a syrup until tender. Lucky me, I burnt my fingers stupidly trying to take the pears out of the pot because I thought I was some sort of superhuman who wouldn't feel the heat and I clearly wasn't smart enough to just go and get a spoon or ladle.

Step 6: Make crumble - Note: If you ever make crumble, WATCH IT in the oven! I was so close to forgetting I had put it in the oven, and nearly burnt it. Luckily, I got there in time, and it actually turned out great

Step 7: ASSEMBLE! As I always say, this is the most fun! You can make things look 100 times more professional and appealing just by plating it up nicely. Now I didn't have as big of a plate that they had on the show, so unfortuantely it was all packed quite tigthly but I reckon it still looks great.
The nice thing about this dessert is that it wasn't too rich, and the fact that there is some fruit in it makes you feel a little bit better about eating it :)


Not only did I manage to complete it under the time-limit, but it was relatively easy to make, although there were a few processes it was still quite simple. I would definitely give it a go if I was you, or just.... Eat up!