This pear almond frangipane tart is elegant yet simple: Poached spiced pears in a classic French almond frangipane wrapped up in a buttery shortcrust tart case. With a bonus spiced pear syrup (from poaching the pears), this tart is all kinds of cosy and luxurious.
Suiting the cooler months when pears are at their best but able to made year round, this French pear tart looks like it came from a French patisserie, yet it’s surprisingly easy to make (just like this apple frangipane tart and this baklava tart). With a scoop of ice cream and a drizzle of the syrup it’s the perfect comforting dessert.
❤️ Why you’ll love it
- Layers of buttery pastry, almond filling and juicy pears.
- Bonus spiced pear syrup – use it in cocktails or over ice cream.
- Looks impressive but easy to master.
- The perfect make-ahead friendly dessert.
- Versatile year round treat.
This recipe was first published here on June 22nd, 2021 and has been updated with clearer information and step by step images.
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Three homemade layers
- The homemade tart crust: This tart dough is my regular shortcrust pastry (slightly adapted), and it really is easy to make. You’ll need to keep chilling time in mind (2 hours min) but you can make this ahead (up to 3 days or even longer if you freeze it).
- The frangipane: Slightly adapted from recipes like my bakewell tart and strawberry frangipane tart, frangipane (aka French almond cream) is one of the simplest tart fillings to make. It’s a simple mix of butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and almond meal, and this one has a little ground cloves too.
- The poached pears: These pears are soft, juicy, and infused with wonderful warming flavours of clove and cinnamon. There is a bonus to poaching the pears and that’s the wonderful pear syrup you’re left with afterward. Use it as a cordial, in cocktails, or over ice cream. I use a little on top of each slice of almond pear tart too.
Ingredients and substitutions
Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.
- Homemade pastry: You’ll need unsalted butter, icing sugar, an egg, and flour to make the homemade shortcrust pastry.
- Frangipane filling: The next layer of your pear and almond tart is, of course, the frangipane filling. To make it, use white granulated sugar, unsalted butter, eggs, vanilla extract, flour, almond meal, and ground cloves. As a note, almond meal (also called almond flour) is just very finely ground almonds. It’s used often in flourless cakes and gives a wonderful moist texture when baked.
- Pears: The Packham pear is my favourite to use, but Bosc also works well. Both hold their shape well when baked as opposed to turning mushy.
- Spices: This tart has cinnamon and cloves. The cinnamon is in the form of sticks, and the cloves are in two forms — whole and ground.
How to make pear frangipane tart
Different from a flaky pastry that you would pulse together in a food processor, this pate sucrée crust is more like a cookie texture and comes together like a cookie would in a stand mixer or with an electric mixer.
You’ll start your pear frangipane tart by making the pastry, and then the almond filling. Lastly, you’ll poach the pears, which will also create the spiced pear syrup. This pear syrup is just lovely. The pears and spices are infused into the syrup, then removed, and the resulting syrup is rich in flavour and smells so comforting. Winter flavours at their best!
Even though the tart is already extremely flavourful and very moist in texture, I pour a little of the syrup over the slices of this pear tart when serving. You could save the whole lot though and use it in cocktails, as cordial, or for just pouring over ice cream or pancakes.
Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.
1. Make the pastry
Start by beating together butter and sugar, then add the egg and beat to combine. Add the flour and beat through until well combined and the dough begins to clump together.
Shape the dough into a smooth disc, and roll it out on a lightly floured surface. Lay the pastry in your tart tin — press down into the corners gently with your fingertips and leave the edges standing up. Chill the tart shell for at least 2 hours.
2. Par-bake the tart shell
After the pastry has chilled, run a knife flat along the edge all the way round to cut away the excess pastry then dock the centre (prick all over with a fork).
Line the shell with baking paper, fill it with pie weights (or rice), and par-bake.
3. Poach the pears
Peel and remove the cores from the pears.
Place them in some water with the spices and simmer until tender. Drain on paper towel, but keep the syrup simmering until thickened.
4. Make the frangipane filling
Frangipane is an almond cream made mainly with almonds, butter, eggs and sugar. Beat the sugar and butter together until creamy, then add eggs and vanilla.
Beat in the flour, almond flour, and ground cloves, and spread the mixture into the tart shell.
5. Assemble and bake
Slice the pears, lay them on top of the frangipane, and brush with the spiced pear simple syrup. Bake your pear almond tart for 60-70 minutes. Allow the part to cool in the pie tin, serve, and enjoy!
Tips and tricks
- Don’t overwork the pastry. Handle the pastry gently and quickly as overworking it can lead to it shrinking.
- Don’t skip the chilling time. This allows the pastry to relax (so that it isn’t elastic and reduces the amount of shrinkage), and it also keeps that butter cold. This helps to keep it from shrinking. You can actually see in the process shots above, I had only chilled the pastry for about 1 hour so it did shrink a little. The tart will still work but the longer it chills the less shrinkage you’ll get.
- Don’t skip blind baking. Blind baking may seem like an extra step, but it’s well worth it. Without it, the bottom of the pear almond tart won’t be nice and crisp (because nobody wants a soggy bottom).
- Use a melon baller to remove the pear cores. This makes the job so easy and less dangerous and messy than trying to cut them out with a knife.
- Make sure to drain the pears: You want the pears to be dry when you add them to the frangipane and pear tart or you’ll end up with liquid in your tart and it could turn out soggy.
- Cool the shell slightly: Before adding the frangipane filling, give the tart shell 5 minutes to cool a little, otherwise the butter in the frangipane will immediately melt when you try to spread it in. I normally leave making the frangipane until the tart shell has come out of the oven.
- Give it a shine: Straight out of the oven you can brush it with some warmed apricot jam just like a classic French pattisserie.
⏰Time-saving tips for my pear almond tart
It may seem like there are many steps to this pear almond frangipane tart recipe, but I promise none are difficult. While it’s all doable in one morning, I know you have other things to do as well, so here are some tips to save time.
- 2-3 days ahead: Make the pastry dough ahead of time, anywhere up to the point where it’s in the tin, shaped, trimmed, and docked (docking = pricking with a fork). If you freeze it, you can do it 2 months ahead (defrost in the fridge overnight).
- 1 day before: Poach the pears and reduce the syrup. Place them in separate air-tight containers in the fridge overnight. You can also blind bake the tart case today if you’d like.
- On the day: All that’s left to do is blind-bake the tart shell (if you didn’t do it yesterday), and make the frangipane filling which takes all of 5 minutes.
Storage
The finished pear almond frangipane tart should be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, wrapped well in plastic wrap. Bring it to room temperature before serving.
FAQs
Frangipane is a tart filling made with butter, eggs, vanilla, and almond meal. A bakewell tart is a tart typically made with a layer of raspberry jam and frangipane. So, basically, frangipane is an ingredient in a bakewell tart, but you can use frangipane in other recipes (like this pear and almond tart) too.
You can tell when frangipane is done baking when it has risen and puffed up. It should be golden brown in colour.
To prevent the pears from sinking down into the frangipane layer during baking, make sure to place them on top just before baking. Poaching the pears before adding them to your almond pear tart will also help them hold their shape while it bakes.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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Ingredients
FOR THE PASTRY
- 100 g unsalted butter softened (7 tablespoons / 3 ½oz)
- 40 g icing sugar (powdered sugar) (⅓ cup / ~1 ½oz)
- 1 large egg room temperature
- 225 g plain flour (all purpose flour) (1 ¾ cups / 8oz) (notes 2)
FOR THE FRANGIPANE FILLING
- ½ cup white granulated sugar (100g / 3 ½oz)
- 113 g unsalted butter softened (½ cup / 1 stick)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons plain flour (all purpose flour) (notes 1)
- 95 g almond meal (ground almonds / almond flour) (1 cup / 3oz)
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
FOR THE PEARS
- 3 ripe pears (Packham, Bosc or Anjou)
- 3 ½ cups water (875ml)
- ¾ cup white granulated sugar (150g / 5 ⅓oz)
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 6 whole cloves
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
For best results, always weigh ingredients where a weight is provided
Equipment
- 9 inch fluted tart tin with removable bottom
- Pie weights / baking beans / rice
- Melon baller
Instructions
- FOR THE PASTRY:In the bowl of a stand mixer with paddle attachment, add the butter and icing sugar. Beat on medium until fully combined and smooth (1 – 2 minutes).
- Add the egg and beat on low until smooth. Add the flour and beat just until large clumps are forming.
- Turn the dough out and pull it together into a smooth ball with your hands (making sure not to handle it too much) then press it out into a 1 inch thick disk.
- Place it onto a lightly floured work surface and dust the top with just a little flour too. Gently and gradually roll the pastry out, turning it often, to about 4-5mm thick or about 11 inches in diameter.
- Place the rolling pin in the middle of the dough and fold one side of the pastry over the top. Lift the rolling pin so the pastry is hanging over it, and lightly dust off any excess flour from underneath. Carefully lay it into a 9 inch round tart pan with removeable base.
- Press the dough down in to the corners all the way round, then press it into the scalloped sides. Leave the overhang standing upright and place the tart pan into the fridge to chill for a minimum of 2 hours or overnight. If your freezer has space you can place it in there.
- You can start preparing the poached pears now.
- PAR BAKE THE TART SHELL:Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan) / 350F.
- Use a fork to prick the pastry base all over. Use a small sharp knife to trim off the excess pastry.
- Line the tart shell with a sheet of baking paper and fill with pie weights or rice. Fill it quite full and making sure it’s pressed up tight against the edges.
- Bake for 15 minutes then carefully remove the paper and pie weights and bake a further 5 minutes.
- FOR THE POACHED PEARS: Peel and halve the pears. Carefully cut out the core (a melon baller makes this easy). Make sure to remove the stems too.
- Place the water, sugar, cinnamon sticks, cloves and vanilla into a large saucepan over medium heat stirring until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a simmer. Add the pears and poach at a simmer for 7-10 minutes or until just tender when you poke them with a fork.
- Remove the pears, drain them on paper towel.
- Continue simmering the poaching liquid for another 15-20 minutes until you have around 1 cup or less left. Strain into a jug and set aside to cool.
- FOR THE FRANGIPANE FILLING:Once the tart shell has finished blind-baking.
- In a medium bowl with an electric beater, beat together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat well. Finally, mix in the flour, almond meal and ground cloves.
- Carefully spread the mixture over the base of the tart shell.
- Slice the pears into thin slices and holding them together, arrange over the top of the frangipane, points to the center of filling. Brush just a little of the thickened syrup just over the pears.
- Bake for 60-70 minutes, turning the tray half way through, until golden and springy on top. If you notice any liquid pooling around the pears, soak it up with a paper towel. A little is fine.
- Cool tart in the tin to room temperature before serving.
- Please take a moment to leave a comment & rating. It's appreciated and so helpful.
Notes
- Tablespoons: I use a standard Australian 20ml tablespoon (= 4 teaspoons)
- For best results, you should always weigh ingredients like flour and sugar. Kitchen scales are relatively cheap but if you can’t weigh the ingredients, use the spoon and level method (don’t scoop).
- Baking time: All ovens vary, test for doneness 3-5 minutes before for the pastry blind bake and 5-10 minutes before for the end.
- Pear Varieties: Packham pears, anjou pears or bosc pears will all work well.
- Start the poached pears while the pastry is resting, so they drain and cool in time.
More Information
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4 Comments on “Pear Almond Frangipane Tart”
Simple , elegant and yum. Almonds and pears…a lovely combination.
Thank you Marie.
So happy you love it, Pamela
These tart looks and sounds splendid – beautiful and inviting combination of textures and flavours. Even though these cozy aromas, as you mentioned, are associated with fall, I wouldn’t mind a huge slice right now (Well, our first summer day feels like autumn hehe)
It absolutely works all year round. Thanks Ben