Peach Pizza

Necessity is the mother of invention, as we all know very well. Peach Pizza was created on an evening when my husband was away on business, my kids were already in bed and I had friends coming over in the evening and absolutely nothing in the house to serve them. I searched around in my freezer, fridge and cupboards and found:

frozen puff pastry
2 peaches
demera sugar
ground cinnamon or cardamom (optional).

I preheated the oven to 400. Took out one sheet of the puff pastry which was a sweet little 10-inch square. I put the puff pastry on a piece of parchment paper in a sheet pan to defrost for 10 minutes while I peeled and thinly sliced the two peaches. The peaches were sweet succulent specimens from a local orchard and I had a pang about sacrificing their loveliness to a baked tart, but in the end I thought it was worth the gamble - they could always come out even more delicious once cooked.

When the puff pastry was soft, I scored a square about 3/4 of an inch from the edge all the way around. Then I carefully arranged the peach slices within the scored square, nicely overlapping. I sprinkled all with a few big crystals of demerra sugar (you could sprinkle with your spice of choice here if you were opting in) and baked it for about 25 minutes - or until the risen outside edge was golden brown and quite firm.

We ate it room temperature with a cup of tea, but hot out of the oven vanilla ice cream would be nothing to sneeze at.

Of course, you could use apples and cinnamon sugar if that is what you have on hand. Or pears. Plums might be too juicy. The puff pastry came from Trader Joe's and was only $4.99 for two sheets. It is lovely to have on hand in the freezer for just such dessert emergencies.