The other day, my friend Teresa generously gave me a bag of home-grown pears. They looked delicious. "Eat them right away," she said, "you want to eat them while they are still firm."

Pears are a great fruit—very high in fiber, a good source of vitamin C, and they also provide dietary copper. Copper is an antioxidant required by the body for good health, aiding in iron processing. Fairly low in calories, a medium-sized pear has around 70 calories, making them a great snack choice.

Initially, I thought of canning the pears since firm pears hold up the best to the heat of canning. Or perhaps making pear butter. But in the end, I decided to make a torte for dessert. The flavor and sweetness were balanced, and the pears were just right—firm and not too mushy. However, the torte turned out too dense and a little dry. It definitely could have used a sauce to help out. My husband’s response was, "it needs some ice cream."

If I make this recipe again with regular pears, I’d consider a few changes—possibly adding applesauce to moisten it up, soaking the flour in a small measure of apple juice to soften the fiber, or adding a little more fat. I’m not sure, but it’s clear that getting it just right on the first try isn’t always easy. Keep playing with it, and enjoy the process and the results.

A few days later, I found myself with some extra phyllo dough and more perfectly ripe pears, which inspired another dessert. I must admit that I’m not very good at making pie crusts, so I rarely make two-crust pies. Besides the obvious increase in calories, there's also the need to roll out two crusts.

As I looked at the pears, I realized that phyllo might make an excellent flaky “crust,” allowing me to make a galette-style tart instead.

According to the Food Dictionary at Epicurious, a galette 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, with as many variations as there are French regions." My galette turned out even better than I imagined, and it’s something I will definitely make again.

Phyllo Pear Galette

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Ingredients

  

• 8-10 sheets thawed *gluten-free puff pastry
• 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

Instructions

 

• 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

Notes

*gluten free puff pastry

Simple Pear Torte

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Ingredients

  

• 3 pears
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 C. milk
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1 C. Organic Cane Juice Crystals
• 1 1/2 C. *King Arthur Gluten Free Measure for Measure
• 1 t. vanilla
• 1/2 t. cinnamon (optional)

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350 deg F

  Peel, core, and slice pears

  Mix together eggs, milk, salt, vanilla, cinnamon, and organic cane juice crystals

  Add flour and mix well

  gently mix in pears
• Grease a 9" cake pan

  Coat the pan with sucanat

  Pour torte mixture into pan

  Bake 30-35 minutes or until done

  Enjoy!

Notes

*King Arthur Gluten Free Measure for Measure

Optional: serve with vanilla ice cream