17. Chocolate Pear Tart

The first week of pastry school has kept me pretty busy, so sorry it’s been a week! Here’s a pear tart I made earlier… about 2 weeks ago in fact.

I’ll put up a short update post tomorrow about my first week, but today I just want to get this tart posted and done. Finally check it off the list!

I unfortunately didn’t actually get to try this pie myself, as I made it for the Macmillan coffee morning and so couldn’t cut into it. However, I heard that it was goooooood. So I’ll be making this again soon to actually try some!

Makes one tart

Ingredients

Pastry

260g (9oz) plain flour
100g (3.5oz) cocoa powder
pinch of salt
100g (3.5oz) golden caster sugar
225g (8oz) butter, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs

Filling

4 or 5 pears
1 egg
25g (1oz) butter
50g (1.75oz) melted chocolate
50g (1.75oz) self raising flour

Method

Beat the pastry sugar and butter together until creamy. Add in the vanilla extract and the eggs and beat until smooth.
Fold in the flour, cocoa powder and salt until a dough forms.
Chill your dough in the fridge, wrapped in clingfilm for at least 15 minutes to make it easier to work with.
Preheat the oven to 175C.
Roll out your dough until about 1/8” thick to fill your tart tin. The tin I used was actually an 8” round cake tin and I used about half of my dough, so there should be enough to make a lid if you so desire.
Grease your tart tin and then line it with your chocolate pastry. Pierce your pastry with a fork multiple times and then blind bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
Cut your pears in half and then in slices about 1/4” thick, removing the cores as you go.
Simmer your pear slices in a large shallow pan for 3-5 minutes until tender. Drain and leave to cool.
Beat together all the other filling ingredients to make a rudimentary cake mix, and then spread this in an even layer in your tart case. Then start arranging your pear slices around the edge, slightly overlapping. Keep doing this, spiralling further and further in until you have no more space to fill. (See the pictures)
Bake your tart for 30-40 minutes at 165C until the cake batter has fully cooked.
Allow to cool before cutting.