Curtis Stone’s spiced pear upside-down caramel tart

Are you ready? 1,2,3. Oh, yes. I'm going to show you how to make a spiced pear upside-down caramel tart, otherwise known as a pear tarte tartin. But that's way too fancy. This is really, really easy to do. You start off by making the caramel. Alright, so throw some sugar into a pan and we're going to let that melt. You might also want to turn your oven on, pre-set it to 190. That's what we're going to bake the tart in. The one thing to remember when you make a caramel is don't mess with it too much. If you're standing there, stirring it, there's a chance you'll crystallise the sugar. And you really don't want to, I'm going to leave it on a relatively high heat, you can see if I lift it up, see how it just sort of is sliding? That's good. That means it's melting, so you know you're on the right track. While that happens, come down here, and I'll show you how to roll the pastry. Now what I do is I take two sheets of puff pastry. And all I do is I dip my fingers in, just like that, and then I just flick it over the top of the pastry. You really don't want a lot of flour, because that'll dry out your pastry, you need just a little bit. The reason I'm using two sheets of puff is I want to make it a little thicker. It also means you get these beautiful layers, it's what puff pastry is. I always roll in one direction. Straight ahead. I never roll like this and then roll like this, it just gives you a bit more control over the way something ends up looking. So once you're happy with how that's rolled, you can either just cut the corners off or you can get a plate, turn it upside down like this. And just run your knife around like that, doesn't have to be perfect. You will know why when I get to doing it, but you can remove those little pieces. Oh, one more thing. I'm gonna dock our pastry, which means you get a fork and you go and you make some little holes. It'll just stop the pastry from doming up like that, it’ll allow the steam to escape. So you stick this in the fridge for about 30 minutes and let it rest. See that, the sugar’s starting to dissolve. So I can now just very gently tilt my pan. See how that sugar’s all melting. That's exactly what you want to happen. And see how I haven't put a spoon in there. It's so tempting to pick up your spoon, but don't you do it. It looks absolutely lovely. Once it's melted, once it's perfectly golden brown, then we add a little spice and I'm adding my cinnamon, and then I'm going to add a little of the apple cider vinegar. And then you add your butter. Now you're allowed to use your spoon, happy days. You can stir away and that butter’s gonna get all incorporated by that beautiful, beautiful caramel. Kill your heat. And you're gonna let it cool. So what you do next is you go ahead and you place your pears. Now all I've done is I've peeled them and I've removed the core. So then what you do is go ahead and you're going to make it a nice little design, sort of, I go around the pan because one of these pears is going to end up right in the centre. So see how I’ve sort of gone on on a bit of a lean. And I've just left enough space in the middle for one more pear. And you get that guy, stick it in there. Now you can do this with all kinds of fruit, the fruit has to be sturdy enough to be able to cook for like half an hour. So berries, they fall apart, you know, but something like a pear or an apple is absolutely perfect. Little secret. I always put just a little salt, that might not even be in the recipe but do it. Now the one thing you've got to remember is if you try and put the pastry on this while the pan is still warm, which it is, it's going to melt the pastry and make your life really, really difficult. So let it completely cool. You can do that by dropping it in the freezer, you can stick it in the fridge or you can just leave it out for half an hour. Choice is yours, but I'm going to stick mine in the freezer. So you've preheated your oven to 190. Your pastry’s rested. Your caramel is now cool to touch. Right, so it's time to assemble your tarte. Here's what you do. You just go ahead, take that puff pastry off the paper like that. And then basically lay it straight over your pan. Right. Then what you're going to do is tuck the pastry all the way down, all the way down to the very bottom of your pan. And just keep rotating it all the way around. Get the pastry in between the pan and the pears. You guys, this is going to be like the best thing you've ever made. It goes into the oven for 30 minutes at 190 and then you turn it down to 175 for another 30. The only thing left to do is make a delicious caramel sauce. This time, it will be used to pour over. So preheat a pan, little saucepan like that, and then throw in your sugar. Same deal as before. Don't stir it too much. Don't mess with it, just let it melt, let it do its thing. Once it's melted, turned into a liquid, and then turned into a caramel. We will then add the cream. The only other ingredient I add is a little salt. And stir until it's fully blended. How perfect does that look. Once your tart’s been in for 30 minutes and the pasty’s puffed and browned, turn it down to 175 and give it 30 minutes more. Look at that, crispy on top, still sliding around underneath. Perfection. Now once you've let it sit, you can leave it for five minutes or 20 minutes, you just want to make sure that it's not too hot to handle. Okay, what you're going to do is pour a little bit of the liquid out of the bottom. Just hold your pastry in place. Pour just a little bit of that watery caramel. Just like that. Give your pan a little shake. And then, you can either pop the plate over and then invert it, or I'll do it like this for you. Are you ready? On the count of three, I'm just going to flip it out. You ready for this? 1, 2, 3. Oh, yes. It's a thing of beauty, isn't it? I don't know about you, but I think that looks pretty amazing. Now you can either put some of this little bit of caramel sauce that has all that pear juice back over it or you can take some of this thicker caramel sauce and just drizzle that straight over those pears. Either way, you're going to slice it into slices and serve it with a little bit of vanilla ice cream. And I'll tell you what, your guests are going to be very, very happy with you. One more little drizzle of that caramel sauce. It’s probably best you eat this one in private. Little bit of ice cream, some of that beautiful pear. And the best part is that pastry, it’s so crispy because it was cooked on top of the fruit. Oh yeah. So good. Cheers.