It’s chestnut season and in this delicious and fragrant tart, we won’t use the fruit but its flour, which is extremely delicious and aromatic. The chestnut flour and pear tart is a delightful shell of shortcrust pastry made with a portion of chestnut flour, filled with a delicious fresh fruit filling, pears, in this case. It’s an aromatic autumn dessert, good for the palate and pleasing to the eyes and, most importantly, very easy to make. It’s ideal for important dinners, for Sunday lunch, but we can also enjoy it for breakfast or as a snack. I recommend preparing it a day in advance to let the shortcrust pastry rest and further enhance the aromas and flavors.
- Difficulty: Very Easy
- Cost: Medium
- Rest time: 1 Hour
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 10
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter
Ingredients
- 4 1/4 oz chestnut flour
- 6 1/3 oz all-purpose flour
- 3 1/2 oz cold butter
- 3 1/2 oz brown sugar
- 1 pinch fine salt
- 2 medium whole eggs
- 1 medium yolk
- as needed grated orange peel (or mandarin)
- 1 pinch ground cinnamon
- 2.2 lbs pears (very firm)
- 1 pinch vanilla powder (or other flavor to taste)
- as needed brown sugar (to sprinkle on the dessert)
Tools
- 1 Baking Pan
Steps
1) Let’s prepare the shortcrust pastry. In a large bowl, sift the two flours together, add the very cold butter cut into pieces, the brown sugar, the eggs, the yolk, the salt, the grated citrus peel, and with the help of a spatula, mix enough to combine the ingredients without letting the butter get too warm. We will obtain a dough that we gently flatten with a rolling pin (it will firm up more quickly and evenly in the fridge); leave it in the bowl covered with cling film and put it in the fridge for an hour to firm up.
2) Meanwhile, peel the pears and cut them into cubes (it’s important that they are very firm). Flavor them with vanilla powder (or a few drops of the liquid kind) and a pinch of cinnamon.
3) Preheat the oven to 200°F.
4) Sprinkle a sheet of parchment paper with some flour and place the shortcrust pastry on it. Sprinkle a little flour on the surface of the dough as well and, with the help of a rolling pin, roll it out on the parchment paper; the thickness for the pastry should be about 0.2 inches.
5) Thanks to the parchment paper, we won’t have any problems lifting the shortcrust pastry and laying it in the 11-12 inch tart pan (the type with a removable bottom is ideal). With your fingers, gently and quickly press the pastry to adhere well to the parchment paper. Trim the edges and cut off the excess pastry which we will use to create the lattice of the tart (if the room temperature is too high, put the leftover pastry back in the fridge for a few minutes).
With part of the leftover egg white, waterproof the shortcrust pastry with a food brush or your fingers. It’s a “consistency-saving trick,” so to speak, that I use when the tart filling is fruit, which releases liquids during baking, that could make the shortcrust pastry soggy.
6) Fill the tart shell with the pears, distributing them evenly. Take the leftover shortcrust pastry, roll it out, and cut the strips to decorate the tart.
7) Bake our tart in the middle of the oven for about 25 minutes. When the tart is cooked, turn off the oven, take out the pan and sprinkle the surface with a little brown sugar; put the tart back in the turned-off oven and leave it for about 10 minutes; then take it out and let it cool without touching it, to avoid breaking it.
Bon appetit
