Millionaire’s Pear Tart (GF)

I have to admit, I’ve had a few baking disasters recently so I was so pleased when this turned out. This tart is absolutely delicious and rather decadent.

Yes, there are 3 components; the pastry case, the caramel layer and then the dark chocolate layer but this tart is quite rich and lasts well; in fact I’d even go as far as saying it improves over a few days as the chocolate layer softens. It lasted a week in our household which is a huge plus! There was even a small but good-humoured argument over the last piece which is always a compliment.

(Obviously if you can eat gluten you can just buy some ready-made shortcrust pastry.)

As it’s a recipe I made-up as I was going along there were a few errors I made. Next time I won’t let the condensed milk get quite so thick as it was difficult to spread and I would make sure I had a lemon to cover the pear so it doesn’t go brown.

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

170g Plain GF Flour (I use Doves Farm)

20g icing sugar

Pinch of salt

1tsp Xanthan Gum

1 egg yolk (plus another for glazing)

90g unsalted butter

A tsp of so of cold water to bind together

For the caramel:

397g/1 can of condensed milk

Salt

For the chocolate layer:

100g of 70% Dark chocolate

2 large eggs plus one yolk

50g caster sugar

1 tbsp cocoa

1 large ripe pear (I used a conference pear)

1 lemon

Serves 8-10 using a 26cm diameter pie dish.

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.

Prepare pastry by melting the butter and combining all the dry ingredients (flour, icing sugar, xanthan gum and salt). Add the slightly cooled melted butter and egg yolk to the dry mix and combine adding the cold water if necessary so that the pastry comes together.

Form the pastry into a ball, cover with cling film and leave in the fridge for 30mins to 1 hour.

Whilst the pastry is chilling, make the caramel by gently heating the condensed milk in a pan until it thickens.

Allow to cool on the stove whilst you cook the pastry case.

Roll out the pastry, place carefully into the case (I overlap mine over the rim incase it shrinks), prick with a fork and glaze with egg yolk.

Place in the oven for 15-20 mins until golden (if you want to save a bit of time you can start making the chocolate layer, see below).

Spread the now cool caramel on the pastry (I slightly over-did my caramel so it was a bit too thick although it tasted perfectly fine) and sprinkle with salt. At this stage you can also trim off any overlapping pastry:

Melt the chocolate and allow to cool slightly before melting the butter. Mix the butter and sugar and then add the cooled chocolate, eggs (and egg yolk) and sieve in the cocoa powder.

Once combined, pour the chocolate layer over the caramel in the tart case.

Chop the pear into quarters, de-core and slice before tossing it in lemon juice to prevent it going brown (I missed this step when I made this as I didn’t have a lemon at the time).

Place the pear slices on the top of the chocolate layer and place in the oven for 30-35 mins.

Remove from oven and allow to cool before eating:

As the chocolate layer is quite dark, I love sprinkling a bit of extra salt on mine and eating it as it is but you could serve it with single cream or a caramel sauce for those who like their desserts that little bit sweeter.