Pear and Almond Cream Tart, my French Fridays recipe choice this week.
In early June, while shopping at our local Farmers Market, I spotted my friend, Judy Wrigley, walking towards me. Following the Hi’s, How are yous, she got down to business. “Mary,” she asked, “can you help me bake a paté sucrée? Show me how to do it right?”
Just to be clear, Judy is no slouch in the kitchen. Last December, at a holiday dinner party I attended, she served a Bûche de Noël with Marzipan Mushrooms as a finale to her spectacular homemade meal. However, being of sweet tooth rather than sound mind, I agreed. Whether a caveat or just hedging my bets, I suggested it be a collaboration. We decided to wait until Fall and cooler weather for our pastry project.
As a reminder, a Paté Sucrée Tutorial: “Leave it to the French to create a pastry dough specifically for tarts,” explains Renee Schettler Rossi, editor of Leite’s Culinaria. “Although it isn’t nearly as ridiculous as it may sound when you consider that pastry for a tart must be sufficiently sturdy to support itself—and whatever luscious filling you’ve decided to heap upon it—after the tin has been removed. It took quite a lot of egg yolks and sugar to create a solution, but the result, known as pâté sucrée, was worth it. It’s more tender and chewy than flaky and crispy,”
It’s all about the sweet pastry dough which is easily made in a food processor.
First on the schedule, Judy makes paté sucrée.
Pastry Overload. We made and refrigerated six sweet pastry dough disks
Remembering I had missed the French Fridays week when my colleagues made a Poached Pear and Almond Tart, this would be a perfect make-up opportunity. Judy’s request became reality last Wednesday at 9am when I drove over to her house in Mountain Valley. Earlier in the week we worked out our schedule, timing, necessary ingredients and equipment list.
Because paté sucrée needs to be refrigerated at least 1 or 2 hours, the day before I made three different versions of the sweet pastry dough using recipes from Dorie, Leite’s Culinaria and Bon Appetit. (You can link to each recipe.) I also mixed together Dorie’s knock-em-dead Almond Pastry Cream. (If all else failed, we could take 2 spoons and just devour Dorie’s divine bowl of cream.)
Judy wanted to make a strawberry tart with mascarpone pastry cream. Shortly after I arrived she put together her pastry dough and stuck it in the freezer. Together we had six paté sucrée disks (and, enough pans) for our play day. For fillings we wanted to try almond and mascarpone pastry creams, lemon curd and various jams, all topped with fresh fruit.
After filling the unbaked tart shell with almond cream, I placed sliced canned pears on top.
Carefully.
Strawberry-topped Tart with cooked Mascarpone Cream
We were most satisfied with our beautiful and delicious Pear and Almond Tart. While freshly poached pears are more desirable for this tart, Dorie admits French cooks often use canned.pear halves. Although I tried all three pastry recipes, what worked best for me, the most manageable, was Leite’s Culinaria. Judy preferred the Bon Appetit recipe. Most of my colleagues swear by Dorie’s sweet tart pastry.
So many pans. So much dough.
Some tips from our baking day:
1) Be organized and prepared for disappointments or disasters. We practiced rolling out the dough, over and over, tossing two attempts.
2) For the pear tart, use canned pears. Dorie’s correct, there is little
difference.
3) I would not cook the mascarpone pastry cream as we chose to do. Just fill a pre-baked tart with Dorie’s no-fail Cream Cheese Pastry Cream (or, your favorite mascarpone pastry cream) and top with any fresh fruit.
Dorie’s Cream Cheese Pastry Cream
For the filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
⅓ cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup cold heavy cream
Put the room temperature cream cheese in a large bowl and sift the powdered sugar over it. With a sturdy rubber spatula or sturdy whisk, stir everything together. Add the vanilla and continue to stir. In a separate large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the heavy cream until it holds firm peaks. Stir about a quarter of the whipped cream into the cream cheese ( You don’t have to be toooo gentle. This is more about getting the textures of the cream cheese and whipped cream similar to each other.) Gently fold in the rest of the whipped cream in 2 or 3 additions (This time, be ginger, as not to deflate the whipped cream.)
Our favorite. The star of the show.
Although every week I cook virtually with my French Fridays colleagues, this was tartful reality and a successful learning adventure. Why not take your cooking show on the road, sharing your skills, friendship and flour.
All of the desserts are knock outs. Wow, I would never have guessed that canned pears would work well. My daughter would have so enjoyed making these desserts with you. She just loves working with different types of pastry dough. The French really are the best with pastry dough… perfected for each type of dessert.
What fun that must be to work with your friend. Each and every recipe looks fabulous and delicious.
A great experience, but Mary, you alway surprise me with all you do.
I would never have thought to use canned pears. Thanks for a wonderful time and energy saver.
Mary, now this looks like it was a wonderful baking “event” – all your tartes came out looking stunning. I love the idea of trying out different recipes, waging one against the other and tasting differences in all of the recipes. I see that you used your lovely rectangular tart pan with the removeable bottom that I am also very, very fond of!
Wish I could be baking along with you one of these days…
Have a great weekend – I prefer a piece of the pear tart over the ceviche…at least right now, with my cup of coffee.
Love, and hugs and kisses from afar…Freya is busy “designing” a new business card for the KL…cannot wait to see the final drawing.
Andrea
Holy moly, that’s a lot of deliciousness! They all look WONDERFUL.
I’m sitting with Alice and Christy and we are missing you!!!! Terrific makeup post…what a dessert fest you had! My kind of party 🙂
This was a fabulous post with lots and lots of great (and often hilarious) information. That sounds like you had one spectacular day. I also liked the plan b of having two spoons and the bowl of cream if all else failed. Love the idea of making multiples and you have inspired me to possibly do a “tart” party at some point in the future with some gal friends and Nana. Not sure I will be able to get away with calling it a “tart party” however……LOL.
What a fun day. Did you bring your extra tarts to the Gant desk staff? I have to say I don’t remember making that pear almond tart, so I’m going to look it up and (re)try it. I supposed we’ve made so many recipes that I can no longer keep track. I hope that Judy feels like she learned how to make pate sucree with ease.
You probably made the Orange-Almond Tart, Betsy. The Pear Tart was Dorie’s Bonne Idee (and, a very good one.)
What a fun day. I struggled to learn how to make pastry dough after moving here and am only now finally starting to feel a little more comfortable with it. Sadly, Dorie’s recipe didn’t work for me and I think it was finally one of our fellow Doristas who gave me the tip that, as a beginner, I probably needed a recipe which included some Crisco to make it easier to work with, and that once I got the hang of it I could start reducing the Crisco over time. So I found a recipe in Joy which is about half butter, half Crisco and that one works perfectly for me. Now I understand that next time I just need to invite you over for a day of baking:-)
What a fun day! I love baking days with friends. The last one I had was with my girlfriend, whose daughter was getting married, and we made dozens, and dozens of Madeleines! By the end of the day we were slap happy…it was a hoot! I can’t believe how many tart shells you guys made. The two you posted look gorgeous! I would love to revisit the Pear Tart. I remember making the Orange-Almond tart! It was marvelous! However, I love the ease of making this using canned pears. Those darn oranges took so long to section.
Very nice post, Mary! Wish you lived closer…I would love a baking day with you!
I like your back up plan, cream and 2 spoons. I have also had good luck with Dorie’s sweet tart pastry. Looks like a fun cooking day. I will be cooking with friends soon for Sunday Suppers, I hope to blog about it. Do try the hamburgers, they were delicious and I used just my regular hamburger meat.
Beautiful, all. And terrific tip about the canned pears. Am in France now, and your creations are equal to what we see in the windows of patisseries. Good work!
Mary, those tarts look divine. I don’t know if I have your patience and talent to make this,
but I sure would love to taste it!
What a wonderful baking day you had. Everything looks fantastic. Baking with friends or family is the most fun.
When this recipe came up in the rotation, I made the orange version, but looking at yours (and thinking about how pears are in season) is making me wish I had an excuse to make this one, now.
A lovely bake day for both of you! The three tarts you shown look wonderful! Thanks for the tip on canned pears. Miss cooking and baking with my two DDs…
Obviously, I need to get some friends that can collaborativly share in my baking 🙂
Mary, I think of you as being of sweet mind and sound tooth or something like that… XOXO