Pear Frangipane Tartelettes

Directions

1. Prepare the pastry: Cut 80g butter into little cubes, add 75g sugar, 1 egg and flour and mix together with an electric whisk until it looks ike breadcrumbs. Now, knead this into one nice dough ball – but be quick since the dough isn’t supposed to become warm at any point. The dough will be quite crumbly, don’t worry about that, if you press it hard enough it should stick together. If it doesn’t stick at all, add a dash (but really only a dash) of water, and that should do the trick. Wrap the dough ball in cling film and refrigerate for 2 hours.
2. Peel the pears, cut into two and cut out the middle seed bit. Put all pears into a saucepan and add the wine or port and the star anise. Cover and cook for about 5 mins. Turn the pears and cook for another 5 mins, or until the pears become quite soft but don’t fall apart (you need to be able to still handle them without them going mushy). Leave to cool.
3. Make the frangipane: Cream 60g butter and 60g sugar together until light and fluffy, beat in the leftover egg, cinnamon, 1 teaspoon flour and almonds. Chill until needed.
4. Preheat the oven to 160° Celsius.
5. Roll the dough out on a floured surface and put the flattened dough into your buttered tartelette case. Top with a generous amount of frangipane. Cut each pear into a fan-shape, by starting at the wide base, cutting up to the beginning of the pointy tip, but not all the way, so that the base holds the fan into shape. You can then lay out the two pear halves in a fan shape on the dough, so that they reach full circle. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work, I had trouble with some of the larger pears that were simply to big and ended up overlaying each other. Nothing to be anxious about, any shape will be nice and look all the more rustic!
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes or until the tartelettes start browning on top (no longer than 35 minutes). Leave them to cool and sprinkle with cinnamon before serving.