Vegan Mini Pear Pies – The Great British Bake Off (S5, E5)

Episdode 5 saw the bakers faced with mini pear pies for the technical challenge. Paul’s recipe is here. If you want to make life easier I don’t see a problem with making this recipe using shop bought puff pastry, the Jus-Rol brand is vegan. However, I wanted to prove a homemade vegan version would turn out just as well; and it did in my opinion. The important thing to remember with pastry is keeping the ingredients cold and not over working it. Also, make sure your other ingredients are vegan, e.g. not all wine is vegan, but these days it’s pretty easy to find vegan wine.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

 

Ingredients

For the rough puff pastry

• 200g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 100g vegan margarine, frozen
• 100g vegan vegetable fat/shortening (like TREX), frozen
• 120ml cold water
• Soya milk for glazing the pastry
• 2tbsp granulated sugar

For the poached pears

• 6 firm pears ( they ideally need to be straight and tall so they stand up)
• 300g caster sugar
• 500ml vegan white wine (Sainsbury’s, M&S, and the CO-OP all label their bottles)
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 orange, for the zest
• 400ml water

Method

1. For the pastry, sieve the flour into a bowl and grate the vegan margarine and vegetable shortening into the flour (the vegan marge will probably still be too soft to grate, just break it up into small pieces). Use a knife or pastry blender to coat the margarine and vegetable shortening in the flour. Add 120ml of cold water and mix until it comes together to form a firm dough.
2. On a floured work surface roll the pastry out into a rectangle. Fold the top third down and then fold the bottom third up and over. Turn it 90 degrees (a quarter turn) and repeat the rolling and folding. Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for 20 minutes.
3. Repeat the rolling, folding and chilling twice more so you have a total of four folds and turns. Put it back in the fridge wrapped in the cling film until needed again.
4. Meanwhile, peel the pears keeping the stems intact. In a large saucepan mix the caster sugar with the water, white wine, cinnamon and orange zest and slowly bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Boil for three minutes.
5. Add the pears to the pan. Bring back to the boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes. Reserving the syrup, remove the pears from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside to cool on kitchen paper. Remove the core from the pears, leaving the stems intact (This can be tricky, I used an apple corer and a small knife, the original recipe suggests a melon baller or teaspoon).
6. Return the syrup to the heat and boil rapidly for 10-15 minutes until the volume of the liquid is reduced by half and the syrup is thick. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
7. When the fruit and syrup are cool, roll out the chilled pastry to a rectangle measuring 60x20cm/23½x8in and a thickness of no more than 5mm/¼in.
8. Using a sharp knife and a ruler cut the pastry into long strips, about 1cm. You’ll need about 18-20 strips.
9. Brush the pears with the cooled sugar syrup and starting from the bottom, wrap the pastry strips around the pears. When you come to the end of the pastry strip, brush the end lightly with syrup and press to adhere to the next pastry strip. Continue wrapping until you reach the top of the pear. Tuck the end of the last pastry piece behind the previous dough spiral.
10. Cut out six leaf shapes from the remaining pastry. Draw veins on the leaves with a sharp knife and stick one leaf below the stem of each pastry pear, with a little sugar syrup.
11. Preheat the oven to 200C. Place the pastry covered pears on a baking tray. Brush the pastry with the soya milk and sprinkle with the granulated sugar. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
12. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10-15 minutes then serve with a drizzle of the reduced sugar syrup, and some nice vegan ice cream.