A recent combination of extra phyllo dough and some pears that were just right turned into a marvelous dessert. First I have a confession to make, I'm not very good at making pie crusts. Because of that I rarely make two crust pies. Aside from the obvious increase in calories there's the need to roll out two crusts.
As I was looking at my pears and thinking about a pear tart I realized that phyllo might be an excellent flaky “crust” and I could make a galette style tart instead. According to the Food Dictionary at Epicurious the definition is: “Hailing from France, a galette is a round, rather flat cake made of flaky-pastry dough, yeast dough or sometimes UNLEAVENED dough. The term also applies to a variety of tarts, both savory and sweet, and there are as many variations as there are French regions. They may be topped with fruit, jam, nuts, meat, cheese, etc.” My galette turned out even better than I imagined and is something that I will definitely make again.
Phyllo Pear Galette
8-10 sheets thawed phyllo dough
1/4 C. butter melted
3 medium pears, peeled, cored, and sliced
1/4 C. raisins
1/4 C. sucanat
1 T. lemon juice
2 t. lemon zest
1 t. cinnamon
preheat oven to 350 F
mix pears, raisins, sucanat, lemon juice, zest. and cinnamon together and set aside
working one layer at a time brush the bottom of a pie dish with butter and layer in one sheet of phyllo
brushing butter on each sheet layer them one at a time into the pie dish using damp paper towels to keep the edges moist
arrange pear mixture in the dish
fold the edges of the phyllo over the mixture
brush top edges with butter
bake 30 minutes
Enjoy!