We had friends over for dinner and I was cooking different Asian dishes, so I wanted a dessert which stayed in the Asian Flavours but I also wanted something rich and sticky and gooey and flakey and with vanilla ice cream.
These little five spice pear parcels are super cute and above all of course delicious!
Five Spice Mini Pear Tarte Tatins
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Loading...Ingredients
- 2 Pears (half pear per person)
- 60 g unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp Chinese five spice powder
- 4 star anise pods
- Pinch of sea salt
- 4 puff pastry squares, thawed
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 210°C.
Peel and halve the pears and scoop out the core with a teaspoon. Carefully push the whole star anise pods into the cavity.
Melt the butter on medium heat in an oven proof skillet, when the butter is almost melted sprinkle over the sugar and the salt. Give the pan a twirl.
Place the pear halves, cut side down into the caramel, and let it all bubble away on medium-high heat until the sauce is light and golden, 3-4 minutes.
Sprinkle the Chinese 5 spice powder over the pears and caramel, turn the heat down to medium and continue to cook for another 3-4 minutes, don't move the pears around, just let it all simmer. The caramel were turn a lovely amber caramel colour.
Remove the pan from the heat and let cool for 10 minutes (you can prepare the dish up until this point if preparing ahead of time, see notes).
Cover each pear with a puff pastry square, if you like you can trim off the corners a bit to get oval shaped pastry so it's a bit neater, but not a must. Make sure the pastry touches the caramel on all sides (is possible).
Bake in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes until the pastry is nice and golden.
Remove from the oven, place the pear parcels, cut side up, on a plate and serve with vanilla ice-cream and the caramel sauce over the top.
To make it extra special some toasted pecans would be great too! (I forgot these in a bowl, oops).
You can remove the star anise pods, they're for flavour and look pretty, but you can't eat them.
Notes
I like to make these kinds of desserts ahead of time so when I have guests over all I need to do is pop it in the oven and bake. For this recipe you can prepare the dish all the way up until removing the pan from the heat to cool. Just let is stand at room temperature for a few hours until you're ready to bake it.
