Almond Tarte with Rosemary Pears

[zanzando]

The preparation times in this recipe I have are fictional, so w/e - it'll take a while.

Tools/non-food supplies:

• sharp knife (to peel and cut things)
• lemon squeezer
• zester
• several bowls
• at least one saucepan
• a sieve (two might be better)
• saran wrap
• pan
• plate
• mixer
• wooden spoon (ideally, a regular spoon will do)
• tarte baking dish
• rolling pin
• fork

I'm going to assume that you have an oven, a stove, and oven mitts. Ahem.
Ingredients:

• for the topping:
  • 3 - 4 big, firm pears
  • 1 lemon, natural
  • 2 twigs of rosemary
  • 150 g sugar
• for the dough:
  
  • 150 g cold butter (plus some for the baking dish)
  • 80 g sugar
  • a pinch of salt
  • 250 g flour (plus some to work with)
  • 2 tbsp ground almonds (for the dish)
• for the whip (not the kinky kind):
  
  • 100 g ground almonds
  • 100 g soft butter
  • 100 g powdered sugar
  • a pinch of salt
  • 2 medium eggs

Peel and quarter the pears, remove the cores, cut the quarters lengthwise into three wedges each, wash the lemon in hot water, peel it with the zester, squeeze it. Pluck off the rosemary leaves, mix the pears, zests, lemon juice and rosemary leaves in a bowl. (Not mix mixing, just putting them in there and tossing it a little.)
Boil 300 ml of water with the sugar until the sugar is gone, then add the above mixture, gently boil it for a minute (pears should not be too soft). Take it off the heat, let the pears cool in the brew.
Quickly knead the butter, sugar, salt and flour (as well as three tbsp. of cold water) into a smooth dough, wrap it in the saran wrap and put it in a cool place (i. e., your fridge) for half an hour.
Put the ground almonds (the ones for the whip) into the pan WITHOUT any sort of fat/oil/grease at medium heat until they start to brown and be fragrant (in the good way), put them on a plate to cool.
At this point you can set the oven to preheat at 180°C.
Whip the butter and the powdered sugar until creamy, gradually add the eggs until smooth. Gently fold in the ground almonds (that's what the wooden spoon is for ideally).
Grease the tarte dish, sprinkle with ground almonds (generously). Let the pears drain, gather the brew in a saucepan (you can use the one you used to boil them if you like).
Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 4 mm, lay it in the tarte dish (by carefully folding over the dough and unfolding it in the dish, don't try to lift it as is) and press it to the sides a bit. Prick it with a fork, then set it to bake 10-15 minutes in the lower third of the oven (until sliiiightly browned, unless you like it very firm and dry-ish, in which case: NUKE IT.)
Take it out of the oven, spread the almond whip evenly, then press in the pear wedges. Bake it for a further 15-20 minutes.
In the meanwhile let the pear brew boil down until syrup-y, then spread it (NOT ALL OF IT unless very very boiled down) on the tarte once you take it out of the oven. Once it's cooled you can spread some more powdered sugar on top. IF YOU LIKE.

P.S.: I'm assuming you've passed all your powdered sugar through a sieve, because if not you will have HIDEOUS CLUMPS OF STICKY SUGAR EVERYWHERE, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, etc.

(Crossposted to my DW here.)

Comments

[thistleingrey]

Sieve reminders are good, heh--that's exactly the sort of thing I forget because I bake rarely. Thanks for posting this.

If you had to substitute something non-wheat for regular cake flour, what would you use, if you've a preference? (I'd like to try this, but not enough to have an itchy rash afterwards. From my minimal experiments making banana bread and brownies, these act VERY differently: brown rice flour, oat flour, a bean-based mix, chestnut, almond. Oat and barley are fair game for me, just not wheat.)