Pear Tarts for the masses 2.4.14

I made four pear tarts for Community Cooks this week, but failed at organizing prep work ahead of time.  I made the dough days in advance, in two double batches.  Rolled out the dough, then froze it in layers.  First, I believe I added too much water to the dough because it became gummy.  Second, I think I should have frozen the dough as a puck, not rolled out.  Actually, I probably could have just stored the dough in the fridge, but it would be nice to learn how to freeze the dough, and know how long I can freeze it for and how to thaw it out.  After thawing the dough in the fridge for 24 hours, the dough was very gummy.  And after it baked it was still gummy.

The pears were another failure all together.  Instead of using Bartlett pears, I could only find mixed bags of pears including bosc, Anjou, and green Anjou.  I mixed all three pears together in the tarts.  Many experts have told me that the best apple pies are ones with multiple types of apples in them.  So I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.  I sliced half of the pears the day before and put them in a bowl covered with water.  I’m not sure if this was the best way to store them.  I macerated them in sugar, but they were still very juicy in the tarts.  Also, the pears did not cook as fast as the Bartletts.  Since I overcooked the apples so severely in the apple pies I made (more accurately, applesauce pies) I decided to err on the side of rawness and took the tarts out before they got overcooked.  They were still pretty crunchy and I fear the fruit was quite undercooked.  I am considering precooking the pears next time to soften the fruit and reduce the water content.