Puff pastry, Pear and cinnamon tarte tatin

This post will cover puff pastry AND tarte tatin together. The pastry I used is the full puff pastry, not rough puff. Don't know why, I just find this easier to work with. Every time I attempt rough puff I get butter everywhere and just gets very messy.

Ingredients (puff pastry)

1. 250g plain flour
2. 200g +  30g salted butter
3. cold water
4. 1 tsp lemon juice

• Rub in 30g butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumb slightly at parts
• Add in the lemon juice and 1tbsp of water into the flour/butter mix 
• Use your hands to combine the ingredients and try not to overwork the dough
• Add another tbsp of water and mix again (if you added all the water at the same time, I find it harder to make the dough), after the 2nd tbsp, add 1tsp at a time until you get a smooth dough that is still a little bit wet, but not too wet as that is difficult to work with
• Wrap the dough in cling film and chill int the fridge for 30 minutes
• Weigh out 200g of butter and chill in the freezer for 10 minutes 
• Lightly flour the bench top and rolling pin and roll out your dough to about 20cm x 10cm
• Take the butter out of freezer and roll it out between 2 pieces of cling film or parchment paper to about 10cm x 8cm 
• Remove top layer of cling film/parchment parchment paper and put butter onto one side of the rolled out dough and take off the cling film on the other side. This will give your first dough-butter-dough layer 
• Use the other half of the dough to fold over the butter and roll it out to about 20cm x 10cm again 
• This time fold a third of the dough into the middle and then fold the other third on the other side over the top, i.e. a single fold (look this up if the instruction is not clear) 
• Wrap it in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes
• Repeat the rolling and single fold process again x 2 and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes 
• Finally repeat the single fold process again x 2 and here is your puff pastry! 

Ingredients (tarte tatin)

1. 3 conference pears (preferably not that ripe)
2. 2 tsps cinnamon
3. 75g demerara sugar
4. 75g unsalted butter

• Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees C
• In a saucepan, put sugar and unsalted butter on medium heat until both dissolved
• DO NOT STIR, this will promote crystal formation and you won't get a smooth caramel
• It's going to be extremely difficult judging the colour of caramel in this recipe, as the butter will make the caramel go yellow and demerara sugar is brown anyway, you will not be able to judge the amber colour of caramel
• Simply heat your caramel for 3 minutes after butter has melted and pour into an 18cm tin (not loose bottom or the caramel will leak out)
• Sprinkle 1tsp cinnamon evenly over the caramel 
• Peel and core 3 conference pears and quarter them
• Arrange them on the caramel however you want, but make sure you don't have large holes between the pears
• Sprinkle another tsp of cinnamon directly onto the pears 
• Put the tin into the oven and bake for 15 minutes to get the pear juice into the caramel and to heat off the excess moisture
• When the pears have 3 minutes left in the oven, take pastry out of the fridge and cut into a 22-24cm circle, i.e. slightly bigger than the tin
• Take tin out of oven and immediately put the pastry on top of the fruit and tuck the sides into the side of the tin
• Use a sharp knife and make a few small holes (3-4 is sufficient) in the pastry and put it back in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes or until the pastry is well risen and golden brown in colour
• Tip out excess fluid into a bowl , you can use this and reheat it and put it on top of the tarte tatin 
• Put a large plate on the tin and immediately and swiftly tip out the tarte tatin 
• Put the heated fluid on top and VOILA! Amazing tarte tatin!