TWD - French Pear Tart

This weeks recipe for a French Pear Tart was chosen by the author of "Baking: From My Home to Yours", Dorie Greenspan! Ooh la la ... a french pastry. I had a French class in college and we had to give a 5 minute speech, en francais, about something French. I, of course, choose French pastries, which I knew absolutely nothing about. My rambling speech also included some fresh examples. My professor, who was approximately 39 weeks pregnant at the time, gave me some sort of passing grade and ate all my desserts.

I've never baked a tart and I'm pretty sure that I've never even eaten a tart so I was a little intimidated by this assignment. After reading through the recipe I realized that this recipe was relatively easy and that, once AGAIN, I have the wrong size pan! I think this is the third recipe, that did not involve a cookie sheet, in a row! Although I own a new 10-inch tart pan and the recipe called for a 9-inch tart pan, I relaxed about the pan size after pre-baking the crust. The crust fit the pan well!

I whipped up the almond cream, filled the tart shell, and got started on slicing the pears. I bought 4 fresh pears (the recipe called for only 3) and I pealed and sliced all 4 of them. For some reason, I was thinking that the pears should cover the entire top of the tart so ended up using all of my pears!

I really love how this dessert turned out! The crust tasted like shortbread, the almond cream was smooth and delicious, and the pears had just the right firmness. I will definitely be making this one again!

When I do it again, however, I will make more almond cream because I think my slices (yeah, I ate 3 of them) were a little slim.

The recipe called for brushing the tart with apple jelly or sprinkling with powdered sugar. I did neither. I like my tart naked. Please go to the TWD Blogroll to see how the rest of the bakers did.