Plum Puff Pastry Tart

Anne clasped her hands and looked at the dresses. “I did hope there would be a white one with puffed sleeves,” she whispered disconsolately.  “I prayed for one, but I didn’t much expect it on that account.  I didn’t suppose God would have time to bother about a little orphan girl’s dress.  I knew I’d just have to depend on Marilla for it.  Well, fortunately I can imagine that one of them is of snow-white muslin with lovely lace frills and three-puffed sleeves.”Anne of Green Gables

Wouldn’t you agree that there isn’t much in life that can’t be tied back to Anne of Green Gables?

For example, I absolutely cannot look at the word ‘puff’ without thinking about Anne Shirley and her desperate longing for a dress with puffed sleeves.

Just imagine, after years of hand-me-downs and cast-offs finally having new dresses made just for you only to discover that they were the other ‘p’ word…practical. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? In that moment where practicality seems to win but we are left longing for the dream?

Fortunately for Anne, her vivid imagination saved her time and time again from being overwhelmed by disappointment.

And fortunately for me, this plum puff pastry tart managed to be both practical, puffy and well…perfect.

Oh, and it used plums. So we’ve managed to incorporate four p’s into one amazing recipe.

I think even Anne Shirley would be impressed by that, don’t you? 😉

Frankly, it didn’t take too much of a stretch of the imagination to know that when you combine plums and puff pastry you are going to end up with magical results.

Kind of like what happened when Anne finally did get that store-bought dress with the puffed sleeves.

Do you remember that scene in the movie? I cry every.single.time I see it. Matthew has just worked up the courage to buy a dress (along with 20 pounds of brown sugar!) for this little girl whose come into his life and forever changed him.

Anne discovers the dress, quickly puts it on and races out to the barn where Matthew is working.

“Puffed sleeves”, says Matthew.

“The puffiest”, says Anne.

And she goes forward to give him a hug but he says he doesn’t want to get her dress dirty but then she just rushes over to him and squeezes him tight and then I burst into tears.

Because it wasn’t just about those puffed sleeves, was it?

It was about a dream coming true. A simple dream, yes. But one that represented so much.

It meant that if that dream could come true then maybe, just maybe, others might too.

Dreams of a home and a place to belong. Of friendships and perhaps even love.

And we’ve all had those ‘puffed sleeves’ moments haven’t we? When something that seems so simple, so silly and so impractical means so much.  But when those simple, silly, impractical dreams come true suddenly we see that the door has opened, even if just a crack, for us to dream bigger dreams. Dreams that go far beyond puffed sleeves.

“Anne sat long at her window that night companioned by a glad content. The wind purred softly in the cherry boughs, and the mint breaths came up to her. The stars twinkled over the pointed firs in the hollow and Diana’s light gleamed through the old gap. Anne’s horizons had closed in since the night she had sat there after coming home from Queen’s; but if the path set before her feet was to be narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it. The joy of sincere work and worthy aspiration and congenial friendship were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road!”

I’m looking ahead to my ‘bend in the road’…are you? 🙂