living in the woods and making stuff

It is very exciting to turn these…

…into this….

…and this.

Emily and I picked these pears from a tree in my friend Mary’s back yard. They are seckel pears, a small, sweet, and delicate variety! Heli-Claire, my dad and I peeled them and preserved them in maple syrup with brown sugar and lemon juice last fall. Today I made tarts. I love the simplicity of opening a jar of preserved food, and having an almost instant dessert.

Tart crust: a basic pie dough. One recipe of dough makes two tarts.

Press the dough into tart pans and bake until dough is cooked through.

One quart jar of sickle pears preserved in maple syrup.

Reserve juice for boiling down into syrup.

Part of a vanilla bean, one cup cream, 1 T sugar, 1 T cornstarch, 1 T butter. Mixed, heated, and thickened to form a pastry cream.(Enough for one tart)

Layer the pastry cream in a baked tart shell. Place pears artistically on top. Don’t remove stems. (They were lovingly left in tact in the first place…) Drizzle tart with reduced maple syrup pear juice. Serve right away.