Bake off with The Bake Off - Pies and Tarts!

So I've caught up with myself at last - just in time for another episode tomorrow! 
Last week was Pies and Tarts week for The Bake Off, Gavin decided that this week's challenge was going to be the technical challenge that the contestants took part in - the Mini Pear Pies.

Week 5 - Pies and Tarts!

Mini Pear Pies

Ingredients
For the Puff Pastry:
200g Plain Flour
100g block of Butter
100g block of Lard
1 egg (beaten)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
For the Pears:
6 Large Pears
300g Caster Sugar
500ml White Wine
2 Cinnamon Sticks
Zest of 1 orange

There is actually quite a lot of work involved in these mini pear pies, but once you break each section down, it's quite simple.

Grate the butter and lard and add to the flour, using a knife to bring the mixture together.

Add 130ml cold water to bring the mixture together and create a dough

On a floured work surface, roll into a rectangle, fold the top 3rd down and the bottom third up, turn over and spin 90 degrees, and repeat. Place in fridge, covered, for 20 minutes, repeat process twice.

In the meantime, crack on with the syrup. In a saucepan, add together the caster sugar, wine, cinnamon, 400ml water, and orange zest. Bring to the boil and leave for 3 minutes.

Add the pears to the syrup mix and bring back to the boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. 

Remove the pears from the saucepan (leaving the syrup in there), and place on a cooling rack. with a sharp knife, remove the cores.

Bring the syrup back to the boil and let it boil for another 15 minutes, then remove from heat and allow to cool.

Once pears and syrup are cool, roll out the pastry and cut into thin strips

Brush the pears with syrup and wind the pastry strips around the pears, starting from the bottom up. This part is infuriating, the amount of times that the pastry would unravel itself from the bottom as I was winding up near the top - argh - I got there in the end though

With the left over pastry, cut some leaf shapes and stick them to the tops of the pears

With the beaten egg, brush the pears lightly and sprinkle the granulated sugar. Pop them in the oven at 180°C for 25 minutes and you have delicious mini pear pies

Then, whilst enjoying your mini pear pies, finish off bottle of wine that you only used 500ml of - win!

Pleased to say that I got 5 out of 5 for this one - Oh yeah!