Roopa
I wanted to make something a little bit unique for my sister’s birthday, so after a lot of pondering, I settled on this pear and fig pie. I adapted it from this pie recipe and used my go-to pie crust recipe.
FLAKY PIE DOUGH (made the night before)
INGREDIENTS
- 320 g pastry flour
- 20 g granulated sugar
- 6 g salt
- 225 g unsalted butter (cold)
- 160 mL water (cold)
DIRECTIONS
- Mix flour, sugar, and salt together
- Add cold butter to the flour mixture and work in using your hands (~1 minute).
- Add all of the water at once and tumble the dough together (~30 seconds – 1 minute).
- Saran wrap and refrigerate dough overnight
Notes:
- The butter should form pea sized chunks in the dough.
- The larger the flakes of fat in the dough, the flakier the pastry will be.
- You can use other forms of fat (lard, shortening) which have a lower water content than butter, so they will end up flakier. That said, we’re a little biased towards butter.
- It’s critical to keep everything cold; if the dough becomes warm, the fat will absorb into the dough, and it won’t be layered and flaky. For this reason, it’s important to let the dough chill before rolling it out.
- Leaving the dough overnight helps to distribute moisture evenly through the dough.
PEAR AND FIG FILLING
INGREDIENTS
- 5 cups of pears, peeled, cored, and chopped (I used Bosc)
- 8 figs, quartered
- 100 g granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
- pinch of salt
- ground cardamom (6 pods)
- 10 g cornstarch
- 1 tbsp. lemon juice
DIRECTIONS
- Prepare the chopped pears and figs in a bowl
- Mix together the sugar, ginger, salt, cardamom, and cornstarch
- Mix into the fruit along with the lemon juice
PIE
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 400F
- Roll out the pie crust to fit a 9″ pan
- Dock the bottom of the crust, fill with pie weights, and bake for 15-20 minutes until the edges start to go golden
- Remove the pie crust from the oven and remove the pie weights
- If you have some graham crumbs, sprinkle some in the pie to help absorb moisture from the fruit
- Fill the pie with the pear and fig filling and bake for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 375F until the edges are browned and the middle of the pie is bubbling thickly
Chateau Gateau 