Easy Fruit Pastry Dessert

“As much as I would love to be a person that goes to parties and has a couple of drinks and has a nice time, that doesn’t work for me. I’d just rather sit at home and read, or go out to dinner with someone, or talk to someone I love, or talk to somebody that makes me laugh.” ~ Daniel Radcliffe

I actually wondered if I should have called this post ‘Shamelessly Quick But Delicious Dinner’. I am in Brisbane on my own right now, getting ready for a few days of psychic work, and I was lucky enough to have two lovely friends join me for dinner last night. We all belong to a writing group, so of course most of the evening we talked books, writing, and writers.

Did I say that it was heavenly?

I’d had my head down all day, working on the rewrite of a current project. Dinner was something I put thought to at the last minute. Something easy. I raced to the market down the road and bought a few simple ingredients. The main course was sticky marinated chicken drumsticks; asparagus, broccolini and bacon stir-fry; and a jacket potato with sour cream. Minutes to prepare but so yummy. See evidence below.

Dessert? Shamefully simple. Squares of puff pastry covered in slices of sweet fresh nectarine and baked into tarts in fifteen minutes flat.

This is a dessert my grandmother taught me when I was about five years old.

Let me walk you through it.

Ingredients:

Puff Pastry sheets (the frozen kind you buy pre-prepared at the supermarket), fresh fruit of your choice (I’ve used nectarines today but have also had success with apples, pears, plums, strawberries, peaches, apricots, strawberries and pineapple), a little sugar.

Method:

Preheat your oven to hot – 220 degrees celcius or 440 degrees fahrenheit. A hot oven is what will work magic on your puff pastry.

Wash and dry your fruit, and then cut that fruit into slices. Not too chunky. You can get all fancy and cut a million really thin slices, but I like things a little rustic. See pictures below.

Take your pastry from the freezer just before you’ll need it. It won’t take long to thaw in a warm kitchen and if it gets too warm it will be all droopy and badly behaved.

Now cut a sheet of pastry into your desired shapes and sizes. I was in a hurry to be talking books, so I simply cut a large sheet into four squares.

Arrange the cut fruit in the middle of each piece of pastry. I used a half nectarine for each square. I guess I could have been more artful, but we were talking and the conversation was good. I didn’t want to miss anything! Luckily this recipe is fast and simple. Oh yeah – sprinkle a little sugar over the top of the fruit.

Place on baking paper (less washing up!) on a tray or oven slide and pop into that hot oven for fifteen minutes or when pastry has puffed up and is golden brown.

Remove from oven.

Serve your rustic pastries on their own, or with a little good ice-cream and a dash of cream.

East with gusto! We certainly did. 😀