Pear Croustades with Prune-Armagnac Ice Cream

By stancec44

Take Yee's pear croustades with prune-Armagnac ice cream (see the recipe), a rustic dessert with roots in the Midi-Pyrénées region (an area in southwest France where dried plums and brandy go together like peas and carrots).

Yee draws out the pears' sweetness and concentrates all of its wintery, floral perfume by cooking them before she assembles the croustade, roasting ripe Bartletts in the oven with butter and honey until they're soft and caramelized.

Then she piles the pear on top of sheets of strudel dough brushed with butter, folds the edges up and over and bakes the moneybag-shaped bundles until they're golden. It's a simple, soulful dessert that's perfect for cold-weather dinner parties.

Yee shared a few tips for how to make a spectacular croustade at home:

① To avoid a soggy bottom--the enemy of all great pastries--spread a spoonful of breadcrumbs between the dough and the fruit. Those will soak up some of sweet juice the pears will release in the oven.

② Give your raw, assembled croustade about half an hour in the freezer before cooking it, so it will hold its shape beautifully as it cooks.

③ Dust the croustade with powdered sugar after it has completely cooled.

④ Instead of making it from scratch, simulate the big, lush flavors of prune-Armagnac ice cream on the fly by soaking prunes in brandy for half an hour or so while the pears are roasting in the oven. Purée the softened, booze-soaked fruit and fold it into store-bought vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients

• Ice Cream
• 1 cup pitted prunes
• 1/2 cup brandy, preferably Armagnac
• 1 pint vanilla ice cream, slightly softened
• Roasted Pear Filling
• 4 ripe Bartlett Pears, peeled, cored and cut into 1-inch chunks
• 2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1/2 of a vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped out
• Pinch of salt
• Pastry
• 4 sheets frozen store-bought phyllo dough, thawed
• 1/2 cup melted clarified butter
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon panko breadcrumbs
• 1 tablespoon confectioners' sugar

Details

Servings 4
Adapted from tastingtable.com

Preparation

Step 1

1. Make the ice cream: Place a large bowl in the freezer. Combine the prunes and brandy in a small bowl and let soak for at least 30 minutes and up to 3 days. Transfer the soaked prunes and brandy to a food processor and pulse to purée.

2. Remove the bowl from the freezer and add the ice cream. Using a rubber spatula, fold the prune purée into the ice cream until it is well combined. Transfer the ice cream to a sealable container and freeze until ready to serve.

3. Make the roasted pear filling: Preheat the oven to 450°. Place the pears, butter, honey, vanilla bean seeds and salt in a shallow baking dish and toss to combine. Roast, basting occasionally with the pan juices, until the pears are caramelized and tender, about 1½ hours. Let cool completely.

4. Lay 1 sheet of phyllo dough on a clean surface. (Cover remaining sheets of phyllo with a damp towel to prevent the dough from drying out.) Use a pastry brush to lightly brush the entire surface of the sheet with some of the clarified butter. Top with another sheet of phyllo and brush with butter. Repeat two more times to make 4 layers.

5. Cut layered phyllo dough into 4 equal portions, so that you will end up with four equal-sized rectangles roughly 9 by 6½ inches each. Working with one rectangle at a time, spread 1 teaspoon of the breadcrumbs onto the center of the dough. Spoon about 1/3 cup of the pear filling on top of the breadcrumbs, piling it up in the center. Gather the edges of the phyllo together over the filling to make a purse. Pinch them togethe over the top of the filling to seal, allowing the excess dough at the top to flair out. Transfer the croustade to a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and freeze for 30 minutes.

6. Reduce the oven temperature to 400°. Bake the croustades until golden and crisp, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack and let cool.

7. To serve, dust the croustades with the confectioners' sugar and serve with the ice cream.