Pear tarte

Ingredients:

A springform (22 cm or 10 inches in diameter)

Some grease

A piping bag or a small sandwich bag

Cake batter:

75 g butter or margarine

75 g sugar

Some vanilla essence or a package of vanilla sugar

Optional: 2 drops bitter almond extract

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 eggs

75 g flour

1 leveled teaspoon baking powder

100 g almond flour (I buy mine at Trader Joe's) or grind almonds in a food processor

Filling:

2 cans Bartlett pears or 3-4 fresh pears

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon water

Optional: 2 tablespoons pear liquor

Topping:

1 egg white

30 g powdered sugar

50 g marzipan

50 g almond flour

Preparation:

1. For fresh pears: Peel pears and dice into small pieces. Add pear pieces to a pot, add sugar and water, then boil until the pears have softened. Remove pears from stove and let cool down. Stir in two tablespoons of pear liquor.

For canned pears: Drain liquid, then dice or cut pears into thin slices.

2. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).

3. Add butter or margarine to a bowl. Using an electric hand mixer mix until butter or margarine has softened. Add sugar, vanilla sugar or vanilla essence, bitter almond essence (optional) and ground cinnamon, and stir until mixed. Add one egg at a time, and mix for about 1/2 minute per egg. Mix flour and baking powder, add to batter and mix. Lastly, stir in the almond flour.

4. Pour batter into greased springform, and spread evenly. Spread pears evenly on top.

5. Cut the marzipan into small pieces. Mix marzipan, egg white and powdered sugar until smooth, then stir in almond flour. Add mixture to a piping bag or a plastic sandwich bag. If using a sandwich bag cut off a small piece from one corner. Decorate cake top with a crisscross pattern.

6. Bake cake for 45 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (350 F) or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove cake from oven, remove springform edge, let cake fully cool down. Sprinkle powdered sugar over cake just befor serving.

Comments:

1. The original recipe calls for fresh pears, but I used canned pears, which works just as well. Just drain them very well!

2. In the original recipe ground hazelnuts are used. I decided to use almond flour instead because one can conveniently find it at Trader Joe's. Moreover, marzipan is an almond paste, and I thought that the hazelnuts might overpower this flavor, and almonds will just as well go with pears.

3. For the first version of this cake I diced the pears, and used a sandwich bag to make the crisscross pattern on top of the cake. For the second version I sliced the pears and stacked the slices like an apple tarte. And I used a piping bag to make the pattern. The first version had not such a pronounced pattern on top, but still looked really nice. While the second version looks neat, I prefer the more unpredictable appearance of the first version.