“A meal without dessert is like a suit without a tie,” said chef Fernard Point. And so as not to have a suit without a tie, today we bring you a simple dessert in which saffron plays the starring role: the pear tart. In this case, we will be using Raul’s recipe, Raul who has a very interesting blog based on baking, confectionery and photography. You can visit the blog by clicking here.

Ingredients

For the short crust pastry:

• 250 g flour
• 125 g butter
• A pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 100 ml cold water

For pears and wine and saffron cream:

• 7 peeled pears
• 1 litre white wine
• 500 ml water
• A couple of pinches of saffron
• 1 cinnamon stick
• The seeds of 4 green cardamom berries
• 230 g sugar
• A pinch of salt
• Orange peel
• Juice of half a lemon
• 5 beaten egg yolks
• Icing sugar, to dust
• Chopped pistachios, to garnish

Shortcrust Pastry

In a bowl add the flour and butter and mix until the mixture resembles crumbs. Then add the sugar and salt. Flour is added gradually until creating a more compact pastry mixture, which is covered with cling film and refrigerated for an hour.

Remove from the refrigerator and completely roll out onto a tart pan. Then line the tart pan with greaseproof baking paper and fill with chickpeas in order to prevent the pastry from rising once it is in the oven. Insert the pastry and tart pan into the oven and bake at a temperature of 180 degrees for ten minutes, after ten minutes remove the chickpeas and the paper. It is then again put into the oven and bake for a further ten or fifteen minutes. Set aside to cool before removing from tart pan.

Saffron Syrup

Place the pears, wine, water, spices, sugar, salt, orange peel and lemon juice in a saucepan. Boil the mixture until the pears are cooked.  Then remove the pears, peel and cinnamon in order to reduce the syrup to 400 ml.

Beat the yolks and add the syrup to the egg yolks. Stir the mixture and strain into another container, and leave to stand in the refrigerator.

Pear Tart

Baste the tart pan with the syrup, then place the pears in a zigzag shape and sprinkle with icing sugar. It can be served with ice cream or tea, in order for a better combination of the dessert’s components.

If you try this recipe, let us know on our Twitter and Facebook accounts. Upload or post any photograph of your pear tarts so as to share them with everyone.