Tuesday, January 6, 2009

French Pear Tart (TWD)

Happy New Year! Welcome to my first 2009 post for Tuesdays With Dorie, and it's a special one indeed. Our hostess for the week is none other than the baking goddess and cookbook author herself, Dorie Greenspan! Dorie has been a wonderful supporter of the TWD baking community over the past year, and her cookbook Baking: From My Home To Yours has been a wonderful source of delicious treats.
Dorie selected French Pear Tart for this week's baking exercise, and it's a perfect recipe to take advantage of the abundance of pears available right now. This tart is composed of a sweet tart shell, almond cream, and poached pears --- I know, what's not to love! I ended up with a 9" square tart and had enough extra filling for a round mini tart (as shown in the first photo).
I opted to poach fresh fruit, using bartletts for the large tart and petite seckel pears for the mini tart.
For the crust, I substituted with this recipe (I believe this is a Viennese dough, but don't take my word for it):
1 2/3 C AP flour
4 1/2 oz unsalted butter
2 egg yolks, hard cooked and seived
1/4 C sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 C ice water
Cut together the flour, butter, yolks, sugar and salt. Add ice water and form the dough into a disc. Chill for one hour.
The resulting dessert is HEAVENLY! The delicious almond cream is a perfect complement to the sweet and juicy pears, and this tart provides just enough sweetness to satisfy a sweet tooth.
If you'd like the recipe, please visit Dorie Greenspan's wonderful blog. I know that my fellow bakers are flaunting some gorgeous tarts, so make sure to visit the TWD blogroll.

25 comments:

Isabelle Lambert said...

C'est superbe Linda et tes photos sont magnifiques :)
nous avons adoré cette tarte !

chocolatechic said...

Gorgeous tart.


I am lusting over your tart pan.

Sonya said...

Oh wow...yours pictures make me crazy llolll...bravo!!

LyB said...

I love that rectangle-shaped pan! Your tarts look gorgeous. :)

Anonymous said...

Nice job!

Anonymous said...

I love the rectangle tart. Looks perfect. YUM!

Nancy said...

OMG!! Your last picture has me drooling all over my keyboard! That looks absolutely scrumptious!

The Food Librarian said...

What a great tart! Overachiever...poaching your own pears! :) Looks perfectly yum.

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous photos, and I love the pears in the square tart pan. Inspired choice.

Molly Loves Paris said...

Those are really lovely and yummy looking pear tarts!

Anonymous said...

The tarts are beautiful! Poached pears sound delicious in this dessert, very pretty presentation!

kimberly salem said...

i love the look of your rectangular tart!! so pretty. the mini tart looks delicious too :)

CB said...

Must.buy.retangle.tart.pan.ASAP! I want to be as cool as Linda ;) Beautiful tart. Glad you enjoyed the recipe!
Clara @ iheartfood4thought

Jules Someone said...

What lovely results! Nice work!

Liz said...

After seeing yours, I am now dying for a square tart pan of my own! There goes the last of my kitchen space...
Gorgeous job!

pigpigscorner said...

Wow, looks really delicious! Can't wait to have a piece of it!

steph- whisk/spoon said...

what gorgeous golden tarts! happy new year!

steph- whisk/spoon said...

i love that square tart--it is gorgeous! and those pear slices look so perfeclty poached and delicious!!

AmyRuth said...

Woops, silly me, just noticed where you do live. duh? Again, lovely photos and so glad you loved the not overly sweet and juicy pear tart. It was very fun to make I thought. Kind of like cheesecake, once you do one its not that daunting.
AmyRuth

Sherry Trifle - Lovely Cats said...

A beautiful dessert - with cream too! Yum! Now I want a square tart pan.

Julie said...

One of the most beautiful french pear tart I've seen! Happy new year to you!

Carol Peterman/TableFare said...

Heavenly is the perfect word for this tart!Yours turned out beautifully.

Gigi said...

Your tart looks amazing! Great job. Happy New Year!

Snooky doodle said...

looks awesome! can you give me some ?

Sharona May said...

Sure does look wonderful!!!

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