Pear Almond Frangipane Tart with Lavender
This pear frangipane tart with almonds and lavender aka tarte bourdaloue is a perfect classic French dessert for any Holiday. An amazing combination of the sweet crumbly dough, almond frangipane filling with lavender and pears poached in white wine and spices, will make anyone happy.
Servings: 8 servings
Ingredients
Sweet shortcrust
- 70 g butter at room temperature
- 45 g powdered sugar
- 20 g egg yolk from 1 egg
- 115 g flour
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
- zest from 1 lemon
- zest from 1 orange
Poached Pears
- 1 l water
- 2 dl white wine
- 300 g sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 3 tsp culinary lavender buds
- 1 tsp vanilla seeds
- lemon juice
- 3 Williams pears
Almond Frangipane Cream Filling
- 80 g sugar
- 2-3 tsp culinary lavender buds
- 90 g butter at room temperature
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 100 g almond flour
Toppings
- handful of slivered almonds
- some apricot marmalade optional for a shiny finish
Instructions
Sweet shortcrust
- Beat together the butter, sugar and citrus zest for about 2 minutes or until light and fluffy.
- Add the yolk and vanilla, mix it in.
- Add the flour and salt, combine together just until you get a uniform dough. Don't overmix.
- Knead it into a rectangle, wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for half an hour. Meanwhile, make the poached pears and the filling.
Poached pears
- Bring the water, wine, sugar and spices to a simmer in a wider medium-sized pot. Meanwhile, prepare the pears.
- Peel and core the pears, then cut them in half lengthwise. Brush them with some lemon juice right after peeling to keep them from browning while working on others.
- Stir the poaching liquid. Carefully place the pears in, cover the pot with a lid and poach on a low heat for around 15 minutes or until tender.
- Remove the pan from the heat but leave the pears in the liquid until use.
Almond frangipane cream
- First, make the lavender sugar by pulsing the sugar with lavender buds in a food processor until the lavender is well blended and crushed into small bits, around a minute.
- Sift the lavender sugar to remove the bigger bits.
- Now combine the lavender sugar with all the other ingredients except flour and mix with an electric mixer on medium speed around 2 minutes.
- Add the flour and mix just until well combined. Set aside.
Pre-bake the crust
- Preheat the oven to 180°C.
- As said in the post, you can skip this step. Refer to the notes or the post for more information.
- Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it between two sheets of lightly floured baking paper or on a floured surface to around 40x20 cm rectangle if using the same pan like me, or a few centimetres larger than your round pie pan, if using that.
- Place the dough on the tart pan by rolling it around the rolling pin and then rolling it onto the pan.
- Using your fingers press the dough onto the sides of the pan and trim the excess by rolling the rolling pin over the pan or with a sharp knife.
- Prick the dough with a fork a few times (so that the air trapped underneath the dough can escape and the dough doesn't rise).
- The dough will work best if it's a bit chilled so put it in the freezer for 5 minutes if it's warm in your house.
- Line the dough with parchment paper (also covering the edges), and fill it with either baking weights, uncooked rice or uncooked beans (something to weigh the dough down) and evenly distribute. You just need enough to cover everything.
- Now bake the dough like this for around 18 minutes - this is called blind baking.
- Now remove the parchment paper with the weights and bake it for another 5 minutes or until it's a golden colour.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
Assemble
- Fill the pre-baked shortcrust with the prepared frangipane cream.
- Slice the pears crosswise to 2-3 mm slices.
- Slightly push the pear half towards the top side to fan it out a bit and slide the knife under the pear. Lift it up and place it on the cream each half facing the other direction.
- Sprinkle the slivered almonds around the pears.
- Bake the tart in a preheated oven at 180°C for 25-28 minutes or until it's a golden brown colour. If the almonds start getting too dark, cover the tart with some aluminium foil.
- Warm up the apricot marmalade to make it a bit runnier and brush it over the baked and slightly cooled tart.
Notes
- Instead of poaching the pears, you can used canned or raw, but the flavor will not be the same.
- If you choose to not blind bake the crust, leave out the pre-bake the crust instructions and fill the unbaked dough with the frangipane. You may have to cook it longer and the taste and texture won't be the same.
- You can replace lavander with other spices or some almond extract for a more intense almond flavor.
- You can make this tart in a round pie pan but you will probably have to double the recipe and bake it longer depending on the size of your pan.
- Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped chantily cream with some liqueur.
- Keep it stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days or up to 3 months in the freezer by wrapping it in cling film and in an air-tight container.
- The best pears to use are Williams pears but others will also work.
- Use pears that are not too ripe to poach as they will not hold shape.
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