Shortcrust tart with pear and cheese
Shortcrust tart with pear and cheese is a savoury pastry that combines sweet fruits with a cheese filling. The crunchiness of the tart comes from the shortcrust pastry but also from coarsely chopped walnuts. This savoury tart is perfect for parties as a cold appetizer.
To prepare this shortcrust tart with pear and cheese, I start by making the shortcrust pastry. For the pastry, I use flour, butter, egg yolks, a bit of salt, baking powder, powdered sugar and cream. After combining the ingredients, I quickly knead them together, then put the pastry in the fridge to harden slightly, making it easier to roll out. After taking it out of the fridge, I roll out the pastry and line a baking tin with it, prick it with a fork and bake it without filling. Pricking and loading the pastry with seeds or balls prevents it from airy bubbles to be created and rise during baking, on the contrary, it will remain perfectly even. Baking the pastry is necessary, because otherwise after topping it with liquid filling, the pastry may soak in the filling, which will make the pastry raw after baking.
I fill the baked pastry shell with cheese filling, which I make by mixing eggs with mascarpone and blue cheese. The pear pieces then go on the filling and get sprinkled with chopped walnuts. I put everything in the oven for a little over 30 minutes. I cool the baked tart because it is not only difficult to cut when warm, but since I am serving it cold, it must be cooled down first. The pear and cheese tart can be served with arugula, lamb’s lettuce or salad mix. Additionally, the tart tastes delicious drizzled with a bit of honey or agave syrup. I encourage you to try the recipe for pear and cheese tart below and I wish you a happy baking.
You can find me on Instagram: mecooksblog and Facebook: MeCooksblog
Ingredients for shortcrust tart with pear and cheese.
Shortcrust pastry:
- 200 g all-purpose flour + little for dusting the pastry
- 100 g cold butter
- 1/3 teaspoon of salt
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon of sour cream
- 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon of powdered sugar
Cheese filling:
- 100 g blue cheese
- 40 g walnuts
- 2 eggs
- a pinch of salt
- 350 g pears
- 250 g mascarpone cheese
How to make shortcrust tart with pear and cheese.
Combine the eggs with mascarpone cheese, a pinch of salt and crumbled blue cheese in a large bowl. Peel the pears, remove the seeds and cut the fruit into thin slices. Coarsely chop the walnuts.
Sift the flour into a bowl, add cold butter cut into cubes, baking powder, salt and powdered sugar. Using a mixer with a hook attachment, mix the ingredients until they start coming together. At that point, add the yolks and cream and quickly knead the pastry. Wrap the pastry in foil and place it in the refrigerator for an hour. After taking it out of the fridge, sprinkle it lightly with flour, roll it out thinly and put it in a tart tin previously greased with margarine and sprinkled with flour. Prick the pastry in several places with a fork, then place baking paper on it and load it with pea seeds or weighting balls on it.
Place the pastry in the oven preheated to 180 for 15 minutes. Next, take it out of the oven and carefully remove the paper and seeds, then put the pastry back in the oven, this time for 5 minutes. After that, remove it from the oven again, fill it with the filling, arrange pear slices on it and sprinkle with pieces of walnuts. Place the tart with the filling in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Let the baked tart cool before serving.
Good to know when making shortcrust tart with pear and cheese.
I combined the ingredients for the shortcrust pastry using kitchen mixer, but you can also combine them on the pastry board. First, chop the flour, butter, salt and powder thoroughly with a knife, then add the egg yolks and cream and knead the dough.
Be sure to choose sweet and soft pears, because then you can be sure that they will be baked after just over 30 minutes in the oven.
The walnuts can be replaced with pecans.
I baked the tart in a metal tart pan with a diameter of 26 centimeters. First, I greased the tart tin very thoroughly with margarine and then sprinkled it with a little flour.
Do you like savoury tarts? If so, try our recipe for Onion tart.
