Remember to use pears that are not that soft otherwise it will be difficult to slice them nicely.
As a filling there is a secret ingredient and this one is the ground almond (or almond powder). I din't have almond powder so I had to grind it myself.
For decoration I played a bit with chocolate. I picked some strawberry leaves from my garden and painted them with chocolate on the textured side. After resting them in the fridge, I removed the strawberry leaves and wooow.... I had wonderful chocolate leaves. It was a bit tricky to remove the leaves as the chocolate was quickly melting on my hands and I had some broken but most of them were perfect to decorate my tart. Here it is....
Ingredients:
Crust:
- 400g all purpose flower
- 75g cocoa powder
- 250g butter (room temperature)
- 50g powdered sugar
- 100g almond powder
- 2 eggs
Filling:
- 100g butter (melted)
- 30g brown sugar
- 100g almond powder
- and 9-10 pears
Decoration:
- 3-4 teaspoons of apricot jam
- 100g cooking chocolate
Directions:
- Prepare first the crust, by adding all ingredients in a standing mixer bowl.
- Mix it and when the dough is formed, put it in a casserole and cover it with a lid. Put this in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours.
- Prepare then the filling, by mixing the melted butter with brown sugar and almond powder.
- Remove the crust dough from the fridge and stretch it with a rolling pin.
- Lay the stretched crust dough on the bottom of the tart pan(s).
- Add a thin later of the filling on the bottom of each tart pan.
- Cut the pears in slices with a knife or with a mandoline. I did not remove the peel of the pears but if you prefer, you can remove it before slicing.
- Arrange nicely the pear slices in the pans. I chose to alternate slices, one to the left, one to the right. Of course this remains at everybody's imagination and also on the tart pan shape. I ended up with 2 rectangular tarts and 5 more tartelletes.
- Put the apricot jam in a small bowl and microwave it for 30 seconds. The jam becomes soft and can be brushed on top of the slices of the pears of the tart.
- Bake in the preheated oven at 200ºC for 35 minutes covered with an aluminium foil.
- The chocolate leaves for decoration can be prepared in advance: melt the chocolate and brush it on the down side of real leaves. I used some strawberry leaves from my garden. Put a thick layer of chocolate to be able to remove the leaves without breaking the chocolate part. Refrigerate for 20 minutes and then carefully peel out the leaves. The shape and texture of the leaves will remain on the chocolate. Use them to decorate each portion you serve.
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