Pear, Almond & Amaretto Tart

I was watching Lorraine Pascale on her new tv series for her new book, Fast, Fresh and Easy Food. I had all the ingredients in my store cupboard, so I just had to try it.

Here is her fabulous recipe: (serves 6-8)

• 500g pack of shortcrust pastry (or homemade sweet shortcrust)
• 100g butter
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g ground almonds
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp amaretto liqueur (Disaronno or other)
• 410g tinned pears or 4 ripe soft pears
• 250g mascarpone
• 1 stem ginger ball in syrup (finely chopped)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 50g icing sugar

1. Preheat oven to 180C (fan 160C)
2. Roll out pastry into a rectangle so it fits a 10 x 34cm fluted loose-bottomed flan tin
3. Use a wooden spoon handle to get pastry into the fluted edges of the tine
4. Remove excess pastry and place in fridge to harden
5. To make the almond filling mix together butter, sugar, almonds and plain flour
6. Beat in egg and amaretto liquer until it is well combined
7. Remove pastry from fridge and spoon in almond filling spreading it out smoothly
8. Make sure your pears are well drained before placing them on the almond filling
9. Lorraine suggests that you lay the pears in an alternating pattern so that they fit perfectly
10. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the filling is puffed up and golden

For the stem ginger mascarpone…

1. Mix together mascarpone, ginger, vanilla and icing sugar until well blended
2. Once the tart is cooked remove from the oven and leave in tin to cool
3. Remove from the tin and serve warm with cream and dust with icing sugar

Lorraine also says that this is “really good served cold!”