Poached pear tart

I know, I know. I am obsessed with pears. In the last few weeks I’ve been poaching them, putting them in muffins, and behind the scenes, eating quite a few raw as well. So I promise this will be my last pear recipe for a while. But when I saw the individual pear tarts on the front cover of my favourite food magazine, I just had to try the recipe. Of course I didn’t have Pedro Ximenez sherry in the house, and nor did my local bottle shop. With a three year old’s birthday party to attend, I didn’t have time to go in search for the elusive alcohol. So I used my own recipe for Saffron Poached Pears but I’ve included the original in the recipe below. You could substitute any fruit you like on top, some poached cherries would be gorgeous for you Northern Hemisphere readers. For those in the Southern Hemisphere, I’m thinking of trying them next with some orange slices poached with ginger. This may have something to do with the fact that I now have nineteen oranges sitting on the kitchen counter, courtesy of a friend’s back yard tree. Does any one have recipes for oranges?

Spanish Pear tarts

Makes 6 individual pear tarts

For the Pears
6 small pears, eg corella, peeled, halved and cored, leaving stems intact.
1 5cm piece lemon zest
150 g ( 5 oz) caster sugar
1 cinnamon quill
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
1 1/2 cups Pedro Ximenez sherry

1. Place sugar,lemon zest, cinnamon, vanilla pod and seeds into a pan with 1 1/4 cups water. Stir over a low heat until the sugar dissolves. Then add sherry and pears.
2. Cut a circle of baking paper the same size as the pan and cover the pears with this.
3. Simmer for 15-20 minutes over low-medium heat until tender. Actual cooking time will depend on ripeness of the pears.
4. Chill the pears in the liquid while preparing the rest of the dish.

As an alternative, try the saffron poached pears instead of the sherry.

For the pastry
1 1/3 cups plain flour
100 g ( 3.5 oz) chilled, unsalted butter
1/2 teasp salt
1/3 cup almond meal
2 tablesp icing sugar ( I think this is called powdered sugar in the USA)
1 egg
1/2 teasp vanilla extract

1. Place flour, butter, almond meal, salt and icing sugar in a food processor. Process until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.
2. Add the egg and vanilla extract and process again until the pastry comes together.
3. Shape into a ball, cover with plastic wrap and allow it to rest in the refrigerator for thirty minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease 6 loose bottomed individual tart pans.
5. Divide the dough into 6 pieces. Roll each piece out to 3 mm thick and line the individual pans. Return to the fridge for another 15 minutes. ( I missed this second return to the fridge, they seemed OK so don’t worry if you’ve missed it too. The last thing you should do is pull them out of the oven, as any Australian who saw Aaron on Masterchef could tell you!)
6.Line pastry shells with baking paper. Fill with pastry weights or dried beans and bake in the oven for ten minutes. After ten minutes, remove the paper and weights and allow to cook for a further 3 -5 minutes or until the pastry is golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

For the Mascarpone Filling
1 cup mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup Greek style yoghurt
1/3 cup icing sugar

1. Combine all ingredients and mix well.

To assemble
1. Remove pears from the poaching liquid, transferring liquid to a saucepan. Allow the liquid to come to the boil, then simmer for 15 minutes, uncovered, until thick and syrup like.
2. Make four to six cuts in each pear half, length ways, going from the base of the pear, to about 1/2 cm from the stem end.
3. Spread the mascarpone into the base of each tart case then top with two pear halves. Push them down a little so the pear halves fan out. Top with the reduced syrup and serve.

Recipe adapted from the June 2010 issue of Delicious Magazine