Long weekend and what can be done with a pear

I love long weekends and lately we have had some of those. It is so nice to stay away from work a bit longer than over the weekend and you have a bit more time to do something funny. Usually we are using those weekends for little family getaways. This time we are going to spend couple of days at the beach, in another small town at Costa Brava.

We are going to spoil us with some nice food, long beach walks, hopefully late waking up (depending how nice Pablo will be to us) and made breakfast, something I personally appreciate the most.

And before we leave for the long, relaxing weekend, we all were looking for... I am going to share another recipe with you. A recipe, to spoil your loved once over the weekend.

Pear almond tarte. Baking with pears, might not be seen as familiar, as baking with apples. There are tons of recipes and ways to bake with apples. Pears however, are also just as lovely and very fitting for the baking, in my point of view. I do have two favourite recipes at my hand, which are used regularly as soon as the pears are available in the fruit-shops. I love pears firm, not quite ripe and not to sweet for eating, for baking however they should be very ripe (overripe if you will), soft and very sweet. I usually would buy couple of them, one part will be eaten fresh for a snack with cheese and nuts, in a salad as an additional wow factor to it or for a dessert with some other fruits. The rest will just be forgotten for a couple of days, till they will be ripe and super sweet and can be used for a pear almond tarte or pear chocolate cake, our family favourites.

Today I am going to share the pear almond tarte recipe with you and hope you will appreciate this rich, fruity, creamy and almondy tarte as we do. The tarte is quite humble, again the ingredients you are using are not that exotic but the tarte is quite special, I promise. The richness of the almonds goes so well with the lightness and sweetness of the pear, the cake taste like home, weekends at grandmas and comfort to me. A custard like texture of the almond filling captured in a sweet shortcrust pastry is unbeatable if you would like to spoil someone with comfort this weekend. I would suggest to have a cup of tea, instead of the coffee to it, as coffee might be to heavy and to overpowering on the taste.

Pear almond tarte:

• 275 g flour
• 125 g cold butter
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 egg

Cut the butter in cubes, put flour, butter, sugar and salt in a food processor and blitz for couple of seconds. Add egg and blitz once more, till the dough forms a ball. If the dough appears to dry, add some milk to it....spoon wise.

Take the dough out on a floured surface. Roll it out, big enough to cover the baking dish. Put the baking dish into the freezer. Meanwhile prepare the almond filling:

• 100 g soft butter
• 100 g sugar
• 100 g ground almonds
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 egg
• 1-2 tablespoon amaretto or bit of a almond extract
• 1-2 very ripe pears

Preheat the oven to 180C. In a bowl mix together butter and sugar, till well combined and fluffy.Add almond flour and ground almonds, mix. Finally add the egg and amaretto, beat everything till well combined. 

Take out your baking form with the shortcrust from the refrigerator and spread the filling equally.  

Peal the pears, cut them in half and take away the seeds. Cut into the half's, halfway trough and arrange them on the tarte filling as desired. Bake for 35-45 minutes, till golden brown (make the stick test). Take the tarte out and put it on the cooling rack, let it cool. Decorate with some powdered sugar and serve with nice cup of tea.

I wish you all a long, very nice and relaxing weekend..

Enjoy!