Amor de Pera (Italy)

This recipe is also called a cutardy pear tart and it looked like a very impressive desert.  The tricky part is that this impressive-looking desert, comprises three rather complicated steps: the pastry case, the crème pâtissière (or crème pat for those in the know), and the pear and gelatine topping.  

As for my fondness for pears, it doesn't exist. We did have some beatuiful pear trees in our garden when I was a kid,but I don't remember ever eating them. Since I don't ever remember particularly liking pears, I actually never bought any, nor have I ever tried them as an adult. So I was a little concerned about this recipe, although I didn't really know why. 

My excellent attempt
at transfering the pastry
from the counter to the case

For the case, you make a sweet pastry and blind bake it in a tart case in the oven.  Soph has done this often enough for it not to be too complicated for her. Unfortunately, Soph had to take care of the baby, so I had to finish of the tart case, and I ever so slightly overcooked it in parts. If it were a challenge on the Great British Bake Off, I would defintely have been admonished for not having an even bake.  


While the case is cooling, you boil pears in an Amaretto solution to the point where they're just beginning to go soft. This wasn't a particularly complicated step. Next thouh, you have to de-core the pears while maintaining their shape, which was much more complex. Fortunately for me, Soph was able to come back at this point and we managed ok. 

With this step done, it was time to tackle the crème pat, which always looked very complicated on Bake Off. Nevertheless I was excited to try this new challenge and was a little sad when it turned out to actually be quite easy. I managed to keep whisking it throughout the gentle heating and when it cooled it looked quite perfect. It was a fabulous consistency and I'd cooled it with clingfilm placed directly on the surface of the crème pat (as Allegra said) so that no skin formed when it cooled. 

Once the crème pat is cooled, you pour it into the pastry case. You then sit the pears in the crème pat, scatter over the toasted almonds, and pour over the gelatine. I was a little over-enthusiastic with the gelatine here and had made too much. Soph eventually told me to just stop pouring (since I was planning on using it all) and we let it sit in the fridge to set.  

Our second attempt at
roasted almonds - they
roast quicker than you'd think

The resulting tart was rather nice actually. It was a surprise to me because I've never particularly liked tarts but this one I quite enjoyed.  Soph also said she liked it, although there was definitely too much geletine on the top.  I'm not sure that we would make this again, although it was very nice, simply because of the pears. Although they worked well, we're not really sure what the Amaretto added and pears aren't one of our favourite fruits.  I think we will definitely make tarts with crème pat in the future but probably with strawberries or something similar, and we'll most likely also skip the geletine.