HONEY POTS

SERVES 8 / PREPARATION 40 MINUTES PLUS 2½ HOURS RISING TIME IF USING CROISSANT DOUGH / COOKING 40 MINUTES

This works equally well with puff pastry or croissant dough. Puff pastry will be crisper and flakier but won’t have the nice buttery richness and chew of a croissant dough. It will also be a lot paler in colour. Roasting pears is a great way to use them and a lot more interesting than boring old poached.

ROASTED PEARS

2 Beurre Bosc pears, quartered, cored runny honey (we use Bell Trees Beech Honeydew from North Canterbury) olive oil

Cut each pear quarter into 4 slices, place in a bowl and cover with a generous spoon of good-quality runny honey, a small drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Give it all a good toss and set aside. Heat the oven to 210℃.

Place the pears on a lined baking tray, pour over the honey mixture and roast in the oven for 20 minutes, after which they should be showing some good colour. Set aside to cool. The pears will keep in the fridge for a week.

PASTRY CREAM

100g (about 5) egg yolks 100g caster sugar

40g cornflour

500ml milk

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

50g unsalted butter, softened, cubed

Place the egg yolks, caster sugar and cornflour in a food processor fitted with a blade attachment and turn on. Leave the food processor running while you bring the milk to the boil in a large saucepan with the vanilla.

Pour 200ml of the hot milk into the food processor with the motor running, to temper the eggs. Stop the food processor and pour the tempered egg and milk mixture back into the remaining milk in the saucepan. Whisk the pastry cream over a low heat until it’s thick and smooth, approx 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter until incorporated. Place the pastry cream in the fridge in a suitable container and press a layer of plastic wrap directly on top to stop a skin forming as it cools. Once it is cool and you’re ready to use it, whisk until it is smooth and silky again. This could now be put into a piping bag and piped. This recipe makes more than you will need, but it works well baked in a tart, as a filling in doughnuts or for a mille-feuille.

OAT CRUMBLE

100g rolled oats

75g brown sugar

50g plain flour

1 teaspoon ground ginger 1 teaspoon flaky sea salt 50g unsalted butter, chopped

Place approximately half the oats into a food processor and give them a rough chop. Add the remaining ingredients to the food processor and blitz until it forms a loose crumb and all ingredients are incorporated. The crumble will keep in the fridge for two weeks.

TO ASSEMBLE

1 piece of laminated but not proofed croissant dough or puff pastry measuring 45cm x 20cm 1 egg plus 1 egg yolk

50g runny honey

Cut 8 circles of dough or pastry, each with a 10cm diameter.

If using croissant dough, pipe a round of pastry cream into the middle of a round of dough, and let rise, lightly covered, for 2½ hours at a warm room temperature, about 24℃.

If using puff pastry, score a circle halfway through the dough about 1cm in from the edge, and prick the inside of this circle with a fork to stop the inside puffing, then pipe the pastry cream onto the dough.

Mix the whole egg and the egg yolk and use to egg wash the dough/pastry. Place four slices of pear on top of the pastry cream, then top with a good pinch of the oat crumble.

Bake for 18 minutes at 185℃ if using croissant dough or 18 minutes at 195℃ for puff pastry (but check the bottom is well cooked as nobody likes soggy puff pastry).

Mix the honey with a teaspoon of hot water to resemble a syrup. Brush the honey syrup over the entire hot pear pastry immediately after it comes from the oven, dabbing the honey into the well in the middle. Place on a wire rack and cool.