twigg studios

A British baking blog, food photography

vanilla poached pear tarts

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 recipe

for the sweet shortcrust pastry
115 g cold unsalted butter cubed
225g plain flour
pinch of salt
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp ground almonds
1 egg lightly beaten
for the vanilla poached pears
6 pears,
1/3 cup of brown sugar
vanilla pod,
half cup of water
half tsp cinnamon
i found these red pears at the farmers market, i have only ever seen green pears before so i had to buy them to see what they were like,
to make the pastry

  • Place the butter, flour, salt, sugar and almonds in a food processor. Blitz until you have a fine breadcrumb texture but do not overwork. Add the egg and half an eggshell full of cold water and mix well, using the pulse button until the pastry forms a ball. Again, do not overwork.

  • Turn the pastry out of the processor and knead gently, just to bring it together. If you have doubled the mixture, divide the pastry in two. Flatten each piece of dough slightly (this makes it easier to roll when chilled) and wrap in clingfilm, then chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes – an hour or two would be better.

  • Grease your tart tin. Lightly flour the work surface. Roll the pastry then cut in big enough and put it in the tart tin, taking care not to stretch it too much. then cut off the excess pastry and put in in the fridge.


    • i used a silicone baking mould from wholeport.com rather than a tart tin as i wanted them to be small,
    like this one
    Silicone Cake Mold Mould Muffin Cups Cake Pan Ice Mold 6-Round Mold
    peel the skin of the pears, using a vegetable peeler
    to poach the pears, put the water sugar and cinnamon in a heavy pan and then use a knife to slit down the edge of the vanilla pod and put it in the pan, cook over a medium heat until sugar starts to dissolve and add the pears, you can put them in hole of cut them in half, leave them in the pan to simmer, turning them to over them in the sugar for about 7 minutes, them remove from the pan, and leave to soak in mixture while you preheat the oven.
    Preheat the oven to 200 C, 400 F, gas 6.
    and place some baking beans in the tart cases and place in the oven for 5 minutes, them remove them and turn the oven down to 170c, and put the pear in to the tart case, and add a little of the sugar syrup. if you want to make a lid the cut a circle out of the pastry and then cut a smaller circle out of the middle, like a doughnut and slide it over the top of the pear and pinch it to the tart case. then with the left over pastry i made a leaf, to do this i just cut a leaf shape and used a knife to score lines on it and stuck it on to the stalk of the pear.
    then place in the oven and cook for a further 10 minutes.

    sew chatty
    not just a housewife
    sew can do

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    18 Comments

    7. This is a SUPER post, I've enjoyed it very much. My husband loves tarts. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve reposted it at my gallery, “The Blog Post Office”. It’s like a reverse show and tell link up. Please let me know if you are not happy with that, I can always remove it for you. But I’m really hoping you won‘t mind as all the posts will be a gallery of wonderful items.

      Thank you so much, Victoria Lavender

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