Peel the pears. Cut them in halves and remove the cores and stems.
Preheat the oven to 180℃.
Use a round 20 cm oven safe pan, or tarte tatin dish. Pour the sugar in the pan and have the stove on medium heat. Heat the sugar in the pan until the sugar caramelises and turns golden brown. This takes a bit of patience and I used the dry method, ie I made the caramel without adding water. Be careful not to stir the sugar too much as it caramelises, because if you stir it too much it can turn crunchy and clumpy. So be patient and trust the process.
When the sugar caramel has melted nicely add the cold butter and spices. Stir until smooth.
Add the pears now, being careful to add them ''pretty side'' facing down. And by this I mean add them so the side with the removed cores faces upwards. This is because when you flip the tarte tatin when it is done baking, this will actually be the top of the tarte tatin! So you are putting it in the pan upside down first. Make sure the pears cover the whole surface area of the pan, fill in any areas with more pears if need be.
Cook the pears now for about 10 minutes until they have released quite a bit of juice. You want to cook them down a bit because otherwise you will have a soggy tarte later. You can sprinkle the nuts around now as well.
When the pears have caramelised nicely, you can unroll the puff pastry from the packaging and place it over the pears so it covers them completely. Tuck the edges in so nothing is hanging over the side of the pan. Take a fork and prick the dough a few times.
Place the pan in the oven now and bake for about 30 minutes until golden brown and puffed.
When it's done baking be careful and use an OVEN MITT to remove the pan from the oven! Don't just grab the handle!
Now comes the scary part...flipping it! With a fork or knife carefully loosen the edges of the crust around the whole pastry. Using an oven mitt, hold the pan and I like to give the pan a slight jiggle now to see if it's loose enough. Then place a serving plate over the it and while holding the pan and the plate together at the same time, flip them over so the pan is on top and the serving plate is on the bottom. And VOILA you should have a beautiful Pear Tarte Tatin!
Serve with vegan vanilla ice cream, crème fraîche, or whipping cream. Enjoy! :)
