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I used to tell myself that I’m not good at baking and that’s why I was a bit reluctant to try much baking (if at all). Well, I can’t say I’m so good at cooking either because I find there are so much to learn in this department as well. All along I’m always more interested in cooking than baking. Recently though, I think I started to get more interested in baking (simple one that is) and actually baking can be fun too (especially when you smell the aroma of the baking and eat them..ohh!!!).
Baking requires precision in measuring (I guess that’s the part I don’t like because I’m not too precise when it comes to measuring lol). You can still get away with a pinch of this and that in cooking, but from what I experienced so far, that’s not the case with baking.
I saw this wonderful pear-drop tartlets recipe in Jamie’s 30-minute meals cookbook (yes, I’m still cooking with it and I’m loving it) and seeing how easy it was to make this and how good it was, it’s purely a sin not to share this recipe! I tend to mess up quite a bit when it comes to baking, however, this one I promise it’s hard to mess up unless you intentionally do it. I was a bit nervous when I saw the recipe called for me making a meringue from scratch (please don’t laugh at me, I’ve never made a meringue before), but alas….it’s all good. A spoon into the pear tartlets and a spoon into the vanilla ice cream and I’m ready with anything you throw at me! ANYTHING!
PEAR-DROP TARTLETS
Ingredients
- 8 small , deep shortcrust pastry cases
- 8 Tbsp raspberry jam
- 2 of 14 oz (400 g) cans of pear halves in natural juice
- 4 egg whites
- 7 oz (200 g) white caster sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 small tub of good-quality vanilla ice cream , to serve
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375 F. Put the pastry cases into a roasting tray and spoon 1 Tbsp of raspberry jam into each one of the case. Slice 8 pear halves and divide between the pastry cases
- Add the caster sugar and a pinch of salt to a whisking bowl with the egg whites, turn on the electric mixer at full speed and mix until the mixture is glossy and stiff, this may take somewhere around 10-15 minutes
- Mix in the vanilla extract, then spoon and smooth the meringue over the tartlets so you get lovely peaks. Put into the oven on the middle shelf and set the timer for 6 minutes, or until golden and lovely. The meringue should get some browns on it too
- Take the ice cream out of the freezer so you can serve it with your tartlets when ready
