Asta handed me a paring knife and a bowl of pears. I peeled, quartered, cored and sliced. She then showed me how to grind raw almonds with a mortar and pestle. I ground, stirred, and kept grinding. Next we cut sweet dough with a pastry cutter. She rolled out the dough and put it onto a large flat cookie sheet. She made an almond mixture called frangipani with the almond meal then spread it onto the dough. For the last steps, she placed the vertically sliced pears radiating from the center and folded up the dough on the edges.
“How does it look? Pear and almond tart, made by you and me!” Asta said.
Song of Naomi 1
This is my friend JK "cutting" the dough with a pastry cutter.
This is a video of me "cutting" the butter, flour and sugar. Keep cutting until the dough forms small pebbles, consistent in color and size. Then stir in ice cold water, only enough to moisten, not so it is sticky. Too much water will make the pastry cakey, not flaky. Then, grab it with your hands, form into a ball, and roll it out on a flat cookie sheet. If you are cooking on a warm day, place the dough in the refrigerator for a few minutes before handling.
This is a video of me forming the dough and JK attempting to narrate.
It's embarrassing, but funny.
In the above picture, a bag of almond meal is to the left of the bowl. This almond meal, found at Trader Joes, is devoid of oils, probably a by-product of almond oil. In the video below, JK is pulverizing raw almonds in a granite mortar and pestle. (I didn't know pestle is pronounced with a silent T.) We found that up and down pounding is best until the almonds are in bits, then you can begin stirring. We had remaining almond meal left and as we kept stirring that, it turned into almond butter. The almond meal we made was chunkier than the store bought. If you grind your own almonds, omit the added butter in the frangipani mix.
JK was beating out her frustration about something in book 2.
Almond Meal!
The Dough Recipe
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 sticks of salted butter cut into cubes
3 Tablespoons of ice water
The Frangipane Recipe
1 1/4 cup of almond meal (if grinding your own, omit butter)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
6 Tablespoons of butter, softened, not melted
4 teaspoons of almond extract
2 Tablespoons of flour
We made two different frangipane recipes, one firm, the other more frothy. We liked opposite ones but came up with in intermediate recipe. The frangipane spreads and rises when baking. Keep it more towards the center, not as spread out as our picture. The pears can extend beyond the frangipane.
We experimented with the pears and found the best flavor with fully ripe bosc pears. If your pears are not ripe, they will need to be cooked first. Boiling them may thin the pear flavor. We haven't experimented with microwaving them. When in a time crunch, use canned pears but dry them before placing them on the frangipane. Pictured are two different ways to arrange your pear slices, but do anything you like.
Fold the edges up, pinching if necessary.
We preferred the tart baked on the bottom rack to give a crispier crust and moister filling.
Biting into the tart, dripping with melting ice cream that was soaking into the rich buttery crust, combined with the sweet fluffy almond frangipane and the tart pears, transported me heavenward! No wonder it’s his favorite.
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