Dessert
Pear and ginger hand pies with ginger caramel sauce
Whoever came up with the expression ‘easy as pie’ clearly had never baked a pie in their lives. Pies may
Not that pie crust is difficult to make in itself – the trouble usually starts once you get to the baking. Pies are finicky creatures and react badly to being underbaked (the dreaded soggy bottom) and then, the next minute, they are burned on top. It takes a fine balance of just the right type of filling, oven temperature and sometimes even type of dish to produce a pie you can be proud of.
As you may (or may not) have noticed I haven’t really had any pie recipes on the blog until quite recently. I was keeping them at arm’s length… until I bought this book. Do yourselves a favour and buy a copy – it has a huge number of recipes, gorgeous but simple photography and a great tips / techniques section at the back. My only complain would be that the savoury section is quite small, but it’s only a small niggle.
NOTE: the book uses US measurements – if you are based in UK or Europe you will get by just fine if you invest in some US cup measures.
This recipe for pear and ginger hand pies is available elsewhere on the t’internet but I have tweaked it somewhat. The original combination of pear and ginger is a little bland, IMHO, so I have upped the flavour by including stem ginger and a ginger caramel sauce. The sauce is entirely optional but it really makes an event out of these little pie-lets (tartlets? mini-pies? all of the above?). Make these – the only thing you will regret is not doubling the recipe.
