Travel Oregon Blog

Recipe of the Month: Pear Hazelnut Frangipane Tart

Here at Travel Oregon, we feature a recipe each month from a local restaurant, using local ingredients. This month, in honor of Oregon’s 150th Birthday, we’re making birthday cake! And, not just any birthday cake – it’s a birthday tart starring Oregon’s state nut and state fruit.

My favorite recipes are ones with lots of pictures, detailing each step – so I’ve decided to give this recipe a try, taking pictures along the way. Follow along with me, will you?

Pear Hazelnut Frangipane Tart

First Order of Business: Gather ingredients.

I always find it important to take every ingredient I’m going to use in a recipe out of my cupboard. I’ve gotten to the last step of the recipe far too many times only to find out I’m missing a crucial ingredient.

Now that our ingredients are all ready, we’ll work on the crust. The recipe calls for 4 ounces of butter, which is one stick, cold and chopped into chunks.

We’ll toss this into your food processor/stand mixer and mix until the dough is combined. The recipe doesn’t tell me what consistency the dough should be, but I once made a tart that needed the dough to be in pea-sized balls, so I went with that.

Press dough into your tart pan, and place into a 350 degree preheated oven.

While your dough is baking you can start working on the filling. Combine butter and sugar in your mixing vessel and whip until light. (I probably would have used a hand mixer for this portion, but I wasn’t preparing this at my own home and was limited to a food processor.) Add nuts, eggs and vanilla – mix until fluffy.

Now is also a good time to slice up the pear. I think it’s a good idea to buy extra pears for snacking. Also, I’d like to be able to take credit for the perfect slicing of the pear, but I cannot. I had nothing to do with it.

I think our crust is done!

Spread the filling into the baked shell, and arrange the pear on top of the filling.  Place back into the oven and bake.

When the tart is light brown, it’s done! At this point, it’s very hard not to slice the tart and start eating. But, there’s one more step!

We’re almost there! Warm the apricot jelly (I did 30 seconds in the microwave) and brush over the top of the tart.

Finis!

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.  Enjoy!

This tart has become one of my very favorite desserts ever. I brought it to a Super Bowl party where it was described as a “little slice of heaven.” I wholeheartedly agree.

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Tags: Oregon 150, Pear Hazelnut Frangipane Tart, recipe of the month, sweet life patisserie