Pear Tart with Walnut Crumble Topping and Maple Ice Cream
This is a recipe for a Pear Tart, finished with a walnut crumble topping, warmed, sitting pretty in a plate with a huge spoon of ice cream right on top of it.
Course Dessert
Prep Time 1 hourhour
Cook Time 4 hourshours
Total Time 5 hourshours
Servings 8slices
Calories 300kcal
Ingredients
Tart dough
8tablespoonsbutterunsalted at room temperature
1/4cupsugar
1/4cupalmond flour
1eggroom temperature
1teaspoonvanilla extract
1 1/4cupsall-purpose flour
1/4teaspoonsalt
Pear filling
4-5cupsof peeled and sliced pearsslice pears into 1/4” thick wedges
1/4cupgranulated sugar
1/4cuplight brown sugar
1/2teaspoonground cinnamon
1/4teaspoonsalt
2tablespoonsfresh lime juice
3tablespoonstapioca flour
Crumble topping
1 1/3cupsall-purpose flour
1/3cupgranulated sugar
1/4teaspoonbaking powder
1/4teaspooncinnamon
1/4teaspoonsalt
1/3cupchopped walnuts
8tablespoonsunsalted butterat room temperature
Instructions
For the dough
You can use either a mixer or a food processor to make this dough. Remember not to overmix or overprocess once you’ve added the flour to the dough.
Start by creaming the butter in the bowl of a mixer or food processor. Just a couple minutes beating the butter until it’s light in color. Add sugar and cream for 2 more minutes until very fluffy.
Add almond flour and mix until incorporated, or pulse a couple times in the food processor until incorporated.
Add egg and vanilla extract and mix to incorporate.
Once egg and vanilla are incorporated, add flour and salt at once. If you are using a mixer, mix for about 20 seconds just enough to bring ingredients together. In the food processor, you will need to pulse a few times to incorporate flour.
Whatever you do, don’t overmix. You can always finish mixing with your hands or a spatula if there are streaks of flour that weren’t incorporated.
Wrap dough in plastic wrap and flatten like a disk about 1 1/2” thick.
Store in refrigerator for at least 3 hours before using and for up to 2 days.
To assemble pie
You will need a 9” tart pan, with a removable bottom. If you don’t have one, it’s fine, just use a pie pan but you won’t be able to remove the pie from the dish.
After dough has rested in the fridge for at least 3 hours, it’s time to roll out.
Tart doughs are very crumbly and won’t be too stretchy. Use quite a bit of flour to make sure the dough doesn’t stick to the counter. Roll it out slowly, making sure you aren’t breaking the dough into pieces, if you do break it, just patch it back together by pressing with your fingers. Once you’ve rolled the dough into a 12 inch circle about 1/4” thick, transfer it to your 9” tart pan.
Press the dough down into the pan slightly with floured fingers. It will feel like play-dough. You can press it down the bottom and up the sides while shaping it and making sure the thickness is even all around. You don’t want a very thick nor a very thin crust. Crimp the edges on the top so they aren’t hanging out the pan.
Once you’ve lined the pan with the dough, place tart pan in the freezer while you make the filling. The reason for this is that you will make the butter in the dough very hard and it won’t melt instantly as you put your pie in the oven, therefore offering your crust a better structure.
At this point, you can pre-heat the oven to 375F.
Make your crumble topping. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and walnuts together in a bowl. Add butter and mix with a spatula or even your hands until the butter is incorporated and the mixture is crumbly. Place it in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.
Slice pears and combine all the ingredients for the filling together in a bowl.
Take the tart pan out of the freezer and spread filling around trying to make sure the pear slices aren’t a mess, sticking out. I personally like to place them one by one laying them down in layers. Makes the tart prettier when you cut it also.
Once you’ve filled the tart, crumble the topping over the pears evenly. Place tart in a cookie sheet in case there are any leaks when you bake it.
Bake in pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes. Rotate the pan. And bake for another 20 minutes. If the top is browning too fast, cover it with a piece of aluminum foil. You are most likely going to have to do that at around the 20 minute mark.
Once tart is golden all around, remove from the oven and let it cool. Refrigerate until ready to serve.