Winter Spiced Pear Tarts with Pine Nuts & Chocolate
A seasonal twist on the humble pear tart and a great alternative to mince pies this Christmas...
Overnight, plus 25 minutes to prepare
Serves 9
Print Recipe
Ingredients
If you’re not mad about rich, dried fruit, Christmas desserts can often be quite a challenge – pudding, stollen, mince pies – they’re not for everyone. We’ve taken the comice pear, in season throughout October to February, and given it a festive dressing inside a crumbly, shortcrust pastry. This little tart is much like a mince pie, only fresher, and we like to serve it with some brandy cream. You might like to do the same?
- For the pastry:
- 170g plain flour
- 100g cold butter
- 1 tbsp caster sugar
- 1 large free range egg yolk
- For the filling:
- 2 comice pears, sliced
- Zest of one clementine
- Pinch of cinnamon
- 6 whole cloves
- 1 vanilla pod, scraped and split
- 75g toasted pine nuts
- 3 sprigs of thyme, stripped and chopped
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 100g dark chocolate, melted
Instructions
- Begin with the pastry by rubbing flour and cold butter into crumbs
- Stir sugar through
- Add egg yolk and cut mixture with metal knife until incorporated
- Add a little cold water at a time to bring just bring dough together
- Wrap and store pastry in fridge overnight
- For the filling, slice pears and add zest, cinnamon, cloves, thyme and vanilla seeds plus pod and leave to infuse overnight
- When ready the next day, preheat oven to 180c/356f/gas mark 4 and grease muffin tin
- Roll pastry onto floured surface, reserving a small chunk to make pastry stars later
- Cut 9 discs of pastry and line muffin tin
- Cut 9 pastry stars from remaining pastry
- Blind bake for 8 minutes - you can use baking beans (or protect your pastry with greaseproof paper and use clean, spare coins)
- Meanwhile, remove and discard cloves and vanilla pod from pear mixture and stir in toasted pine nuts
- Fill tarts and add pastry star to each, brushing with a little cold milk to help browning in the oven
- Bake for 10 - 14 minutes (checking to see how they brown)
- Remove from oven and to sit for a few minutes before turning out on a rack to cool
- Drizzle with melted chocolate
- Serve plain, or with brandy cream (and don’t forget to dip any other fruit to hand in the spare melted chocolate)