CI: A Farm Wife's Fresh Pear Tart

After a short hiatus with my fellow bakers/cooks from Cooking Italy, we're back and baking our way again through Marcella Hazan's amazing "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking" book. This week, (well, last week's recipe really...I am a just a  little late making this) is "A Farm Wife's Fresh Pear Tart."

For once, I followed the instructions fairly precisely (I know, who would have thought it) and went with her recommendations of using Anjou Pears (Bosc is another) for the best flavor results. However, as I didn't have whole cloves, I sprinkled a pinch of clove and cinnamon into the batter instead.

Now the most amazing thing is that I really liked this. And that's unusual as I am normally a big sugar fiend and this is a very understated dessert, allowing the pears to shine through as the focal point. Although, I will confess, I did use some homemade caramel sauce as a drizzle but it didn't overwhelm the tart and actually complemented it nicely.

This is something I would definitely make again. Even better, it's not horribly high in points as I'm on Weight Watchers (for the record, it's 7 points if you make 6 servings) so it made a wonderful Sunday morning breakfast for me.


A Farm Wife's Fresh Pear Tart
Slightly Adapted From: Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian cooking

2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 cup granulated sugar
pinch of salt
pinch of cloves and cinnamon 
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 lbs fresh pears (Bosc or Anjou)
9 inch round cake pan
Butter for greasing pan and dotting cake
1/2 cup dry unflavored bread crumbs.

Preheat oven to 375.

Combine eggs and milk together. Add sugar and salt and whisk until incorporated. Add flour slowly until you have a thick batter.

Peel pears. Slice in half and remove core and seeds. Slice pears thinly and stir into batter until pears are evenly distributed.

Smear pan well with butter. Sprinkle light coating of bread crumbs into baking pan and tap to remove excess crumbs. Place dabs of butter across top of batter. Place pan in top half of oven and bake for 50 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove tart from pan while still slightly warm. Marcella recommended spatulas which did not work for me, so I slid a knife around the edge, inverted it onto a platter and flipped it over to another platter which worked well.

Serve slightly warm with optional drizzle of caramel and enjoy.