A French hand-me-down.
In March 2015, Daniel had a hair-brained idea to get home help in for me. I had recently had Emma and was feeling a little flustered and stressed. He posed the idea of getting “workawayers” to stay with us free for food and accommodation in exchange for about 25hrs of work a week. That meant I could get help with the two kids, general cleaning and some maintenance work. Over the past year we’ve had 17 different people/couples come stay with us for as little as 2 weeks and as long as 3 months. Nearly all of them have been wonderful support with the exception of two. Caitlyn has loved it as it’s meant she’s learnt to adapt well to change and to different cultures.
Back in September last year we had Marie-Anne from France stay with us for a month. She was visiting Australia for 12 months to improve her English skills and live the Australian way of life. Like others I’ve had stay with us, I wasn’t going to let her stay here without asking her to make something traditional to her culture and upbringing. We soon discovered that Marie-Anne was the queen of desserts. She whipped up this Chocolate and Pear Tart in no time and it was truly delicious. I can honestly say it’s become a family favourite in this household.
The almond meal in this tart provides a wonderful texture with the hint of chocolate giving the whole tart an added dimension in flavour. I guarantee you that this dessert isn’t overly sweet or rich making it a great dessert for a dinner party.
You can make your own Shortcrust Pastry from scratch for the tart base, or take a short-cut and use frozen Shortcrust Pastry sheets.
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Pear, Chocolate & Almond Tart
Ingredients
- shortcrust pastry, frozen or made from scratch
- 60 g almond powder
- 30 g sugar
- 1 egg
- 90 g whipping cream
- 3 pears
- 1/3 cup melted chocolate
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
- Shortcrust pastry from scratch - you will need to blind bake it. To do this, fill the pastry case with a round of baking paper and add baking beans or rice to weigh it down. Bake for 15 minutes, then carefully remove the paper and beans. Allow to cool slightly before adding any filling.
- Frozen pastry - once defrosted, roll out your pastry and place into a tart or pie dish. I used two pastry sheets and kneaded them together then rolling out. I found that one sheet didn't fully cover my entire pie dish which is what I used for this recipe. Once placed into the dish with the filling added, I then trimmed the pastry to 0.5cm higher than the filling before I put it into the oven.
- Spread the melted chocolate evenly on the bottom of the pastry.
- Slice the pear and evenly put slices on the chocolate. Alternatively you can cut the pear into small cubes.
- Whisk together the almond powder with sugar and egg. Add the thickened cream and whisk together until all blended.
- Cover the pears with the liquid mixture.
- Bake on a middle rack in your oven for 20 minutes if the base is precooked, or about 30 minutes if it isn't. You may need to cover the top with aluminium foil if the top is getting too brown. To test whether it is cooked, gently press your finger into the almond mixture - it should feel a spongy/solid texture rather than spongy/liquid.
Notes
- For a gorgeous looking tart, first slice the pear up into 4 quarters (removing the pips). Then thinly slice it and lay the quarter slightly fanned out in your tart case (as shown).
- Yes, it's weird that you weigh cream but for this recipe you do. What I do is put a bowl onto the scales and zero it to tare weight after each of the ingredients are added.
- These tarts can be served in a variety of ways - warm, cold, with vanilla ice cream, or with cream.