Flaky pastry with oozing caramel, snuggled around a slice of golden pineapple. # 352: Pineapple Rondelle Tart

I saw a video of Chef Cedric Grolet making a much fancier version of these tarts and it stopped me in my tracks. Caramel? Check. Puff pastry? Yup. Sweet fruit hiding in the middle? You know it. They’re basically if pineapple upside down cake and a vol-au-vent had a baby.

Fun etymology fact: “Rondelle” is the French word for “washer” (you know, the little flat round piece of hardware with the hole in the middle?) Gotta love how French can make anything sound elegant.

If I ever get a chance to name a new pastry, you know it’s going to be a pun. Speaking of, what do you call a pastry that’s yummy, tasty and delicious?

A synonym roll.

You’re still here? Hehe that’s the only one in the post, I promise. I had to distract from the fact that I used frozen puff pastry. Baking on a whim (especially when that whim strikes after noon) requires creative corner-cutting.

I did make my own caramel, but it took me 3 attempts because I was convinced I could use brown sugar without doing anything differently. Since it starts off already toasty brown, it’s really hard to tell when it’s past the point of no return. I ended up with two solid hockey pucks that refused to re-melt so I turned back to regular granulated sugar.

This is definitely the iffy stage when the sugar hasn’t decided if it wants to cooperate or not. Will it recrystallize as soon as it finishes melting or will it stay liquid and become best friends with butter and cream? This is also the point at which I turn to sweet-talking it into compliance.

Apparently it does appreciate having sweet nothings whispered in its ear, because it stayed liquid!

Usually watching professional bakery videos makes me drool because of all the equipment, and this one was no exception. I didn’t have the right size fluted tart molds, so I went pantry diving and decided to try my mini fluted tins and the short-walled ones with removable bases.

Just like with a vol-au-vent, you add a thinner ring of pastry on top to act as a wall around the fruit.

Then you unceremoniously plop the pastry and fruit upside down into its caramel puddle.

Crimping the sides might have an actual scientific benefit (helping keep the caramel from running away? helping keep the pastry shape?) but it’s also stupid cute.

Now we just need to get the tins to let go.

Therapy by tiny flame-thrower.

Ta-da! The caramel melted just enough to slip out of the tins.

Happy munching!

Recipe from: Chef Cedric Grolet’s Instagram