Carina’s Kitchen

Pear and praline tart is your star chef’s birthday treat

Ingredients – Serves 4

Pastry

250g plain flour pinch of salt

120g unsalted butter, chilled 70g icing sugar

2 egg yolks

Tart mixture

250g whole blanched almonds

250g unsalted butter, at room temperature 250g golden caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

4 firm pears

Method

1 To make the pastry, sieve the flour and salt into a bowl. Grate in butter and mix with fingertips to make fine breadcrumbs.

2 Add sugar, mix well, add egg yolks and combine to a dough. You might need a splash of cold water. Refrigerate for an hour.

3 Remove from the fridge and bring to room temperature. Roll the pastry out to thickness of a £1 coin and use to line a 24cm loose-bottomed tin. Refrigerate for 30 mins.

4 Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/GAS 4.

5 Line the base of the pastry with greaseproof paper, fill with baking beans and bake for 10–15 mins until the pastry is golden. Discard beans and paper. Set aside.

6 Lower oven temp to 160°C/325°F/GAS 3.

7 Toast the almonds on a non-stick baking tray in the oven for 8–10 minutes until golden but not brown. Leave to cool.

8 Put the cooked almonds in a food processor or blender until fine.

9 Transfer to a bowl and add butter, sugar and vanilla extract. Slowly fold in the eggs. Do not beat them in.

10 Peel the pears, cut them in half and layer them on top of the pastry in the tin.

11 Spoon the almond mixture on top and bake for 35 minutes until golden.

12 This is best served slightly warm.