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.

Pear Muffin Cake

Am I the only one that absolutely hates going out on New Years Eve? Maybe I’m becoming an old fuddy-duddy, but nothing beats curling up with my hubby on the couch in my flannel pjs, watching the Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi Channel, and muching a huge bowl of popcorn and drinking champagne.

This morning, I woke up without an alarm clock and hang-over free (ahhh, now that’s a great feeling). My hubby and I hung out on our pjs all morning, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the backyard (it was a gorgeous day in SoCal) and watched back-to-back bowl games. This is what I call the perfect way to start the new year!

This pear muffin cake is perfect for this kind of lazy day, as it’s very quick and easy to make and it’s delicious!

Pear Muffin Cake
Adapted from Baking: My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan

½ C whole milk
½ C apple cider (or another ½ C milk)
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
8 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 ¾ C AP flour
½ C sugar
¼ C brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp cardamom
¼ tsp salt
¾ C old-fashioned oats
2 pears, peeled & cut into medium chunks
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 400F degrees.

Butter and flour an 8 inch square pan.

Whisk together the liquid ingredients (milk, cider, egg, vanilla, melted butter) in medium bowl.

In a separate large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt to combine thoroughly. Add the oats and mix to combine.

Using a large rubber spatula, pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and mix only until combined (less is better). Fold in the diced pears, and pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and a knife inserted into the cake center comes out clean.

Let cake cool until warm or room temperature. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, cut into squares, and enjoy!