The cocoa tart with milk cream and pears is a delicious dessert perfect for celebrating our special moments. It’s very chic, ideal also for an important lunch. We can personalize this dessert by using other types of seasonal fruit. My advice is to prepare the cocoa tart with milk cream and pears at least one day in advance to allow the shortcrust pastry and the cream to release all their flavor and deliciousness.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Medium
- Rest time: 1 Hour
- Preparation time: 30 Minutes
- Portions: 12/14
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Fall, Winter, Fall, Winter, and Spring
Ingredients
- 2 cups All-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup Unsweetened cocoa powder
- 7 tbsp Cold butter
- 1/2 cup Granulated sugar
- 1 pinch Fine salt
- 3 Medium whole eggs
- 1 Pear
- to taste Orange zest
- 1 1/4 cups Milk
- 2/3 cup Sugar
- 1/4 cup Cornstarch
- 1 pinch Fine salt
- 1 packet Vanillin
- 1 tsp Anise liqueur or other to taste
- 1/2 cup Heavy cream
Preparation
Prepare the shortcrust pastry. In a large bowl, sift the flour with the cocoa, add the sugar, salt, citrus peel, whole eggs, and cold butter cut into pieces. Using your fingertips, quickly mix the ingredients until you get a firm and sticky dough. Flatten it, wrap it in parchment paper, and place it in the fridge for an hour.
In the meantime, let’s prepare the milk cream. In a saucepan, sift the flour, add the sugar, salt, vanillin, liqueur, and mix with a steel whisk. Add the cold milk, mix well, and cook over low heat. Keep stirring until the cream starts to thicken (about 10/12 minutes). Turn off the heat and let it cool. When the cream is well chilled, whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form and gently fold it into the cream, a little at a time, with a top-down motion. The milk cream is ready.
Take the shortcrust pastry out of the fridge and roll it out on parchment paper with the help of a rolling pin (about 1/16 inch thick). Using the parchment paper, place the pastry in the baking pan and even out the edges. Prick it and bake in a preheated oven at 392°F for about 20 minutes.
Once baked, remove it from the oven and let it cool, without touching it, for at least 10 minutes; then remove the parchment paper and let it cool completely on a wire rack to avoid condensation that could ruin the tart base.
In case the tart base slightly puffs up during baking, you can fix it this way. Prepare a container with water and parchment paper. As soon as the tart is baked, take it out, immediately cover the surface with parchment paper, and place the container with water on top. A few minutes will be enough, and the bottom of the tart will return to flat. Then remove both the container and the parchment paper.
When the dessert is cold, fill it with the cream and level it with the back of a spoon. Finally, decorate it with thinly sliced pear slices. The cocoa tart with milk cream and pears is ready.
To prevent the pear slices from turning brown, dip them in a little fresh orange juice.
