tarte bourdaloue

My penpal in eastern France encouraged me to try a few new French recipes recently. The first one I tried is tarte bourdaloue, often translated in English as “frangipane pear tart.” Dominique sent a YouTube video which I relied on heavily for this recipe, although I did need a recipe for poached pears, which the recipe assumes you have on hand. To poach pears, you just peel, halve, and core them before simmering them in a syrup of sugar, water, and spices (here: cinnamon, anise, clove, and lemon slices). The crust is a simple pâte sucrée which is not blind baked (I was skeptical). Next you pipe in the frangipane, which is just sugar, butter, eggs, almond extract, and almond flour. On top of this, you later thinly sliced poached pears and top with slivered almonds (which I blanched by myself and then tried unsuccessfully to slice thinly). My tart did take 45 minutes to bake instead of the recommended 30, but this may be due to my thicker crust than in the video.

The flavor is surprisingly delicate for as much sugar as is in this recipe. I liked it a lot, but Andy found it too eggy. I guess I’ll be eating tarte bourdaloue for the rest of the week! It’s not a bad way to spend the week, that’s for sure.