Easy Summer Living

One of the traits I share with my protagonist, Sophie, is the belief that food doesn't have to be fancy, difficult to prepare, or a lot of work to be good.


I love baking tortes. Lots of layers with a delicious cream in between them and a beautiful icing or frosting on top. I've been known to tackle the wonderful, but sort of scary Dobos Torte. Seven layers with a hard caramel topping. Tortes like that are the perfect thing for company. You don't have to be a pro at decorating for them to be showstoppers. Plus they're large, so they provide dessert all weekend long.

A fabulous cake is a big time commitment, though. And at the moment, I don't have a bunch of guests to consume a cake, and someone would have to eat it . . .

So today I opted to use more of the wonderful fruit that's so plentiful right now and bake the sort of thing that Sophie would whip up for her friends. I used ready made puff pastry to speed things up a lot. This recipe is so simple that there's really not much to it. But it tastes wonderful and you can make exactly as many as you need so you won't be tempted to eat the leftovers.

I tried several things to see what worked best. I indented some of the pastry where the peaches were to help the edges puff up -- totally unnecessary. To make them sweeter, I added a little bit of raspberry jam under the peaches on some of them. You can do that if you want, but to be perfectly honest, I liked the ones without it better. Peaches and pastry -- so simple! It doesn't get better than that.

As you can see from the pictures, some of the peaches are in a row and others are circular and somewhat like a rose. I liked the rose formation best. They're prettier, and they have more peach on them, so there's a better peach to pastry ratio.

Peach Puff Pastry Tarts

puff pastry (follow directions for thawing)
peaches (roughly 1/2 peach per tart)
sugar
1 egg

Preheat oven according to instructions for your puff pastry. Somewhere between 375 and 390.

If using large sheets of puff pastry, cut into squares approximately 5 inches by 5 inches.

Peel peaches and slice. Arrange on the puff pastry squares in a line, slightly overlapping, or in a circle, slightly overlapping.

Sprinkle the fruit generously with sugar.

Beat the egg with a fork and brush on the edges of the puff pastry.

Bake 18-20 minutes.

Eat plain, or serve with ice cream or whipped cream.