Star anise, brown butter, spelt, and pecans, make for a crunchy, crumbly crust for this lightly sweetened pear tart. If you already have the brown butter, this is pretty quick to make. But, even if you don’t, the brown butter really does not take long, it usually takes me 18 minutes to brown mine. Optimize your time by making two batches at once, one with the star anise and a plain version.
Also, vegans, please note, I have a vegan brown butter recipe too!
Pear Tart with Brown Butter Crust
I used spelt for this recipe but if you don’t have any spelt on hand, regular wheat flour or whole wheat flour work too. The texture will be different though, the spelt is crumbly, like a graham cracker crust, while the wheat will be more like shortbread. Still very yummy!
Pear Tart with Star Anise, Pecan, and Brown Butter Crust
Pear Tart with Brown Butter Crust
Ingredients
Spelt Crust
- 1/2 cup brown butter, made with 1/4 teaspoon star anise {See recipe notes}
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1 cup spelt flour
- 1/3 cup ground pecans
Pear Filling
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 6 cups sliced pears
- 2 tablespoons orange juice
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400F.
- Make vegan brown butter or dairy brown butter, adding 1/4 teaspoon star anise. Once done, set aside until cool. Strain out the star anise.
- In a medium size mixing bowl, combine the butter, sugar, spelt flour and pecans.Press the mixture into a 10 inch springform pan and bake at 400F for 12 minutes.
- Meanwhile, slice up the fruit. Put the fruit in a medium size bowl and toss with the 1/3 cup sugar, fresh orange juice, and cornstarch.
- Once the crust has baked for 12 minutes, add the fruit filling and return to the oven.Bake at 400F for 20 to 30 minutes until the pears are soft and golden.
- Eat! This is fantastic with plain Greek-style yogurt.
Notes
About Brown Butter
Brown butter is really easy to make and super addictive. I have a vegan version coming very very soon.Kinds of Pears
I have made this with Bosch and Fiorello pears. You could also use apples or a mix of apples and pears.Storage
You can store this covered in the counter for a few days.Nutritional Information
Nutritional information is an estimate only.Nutrition
Below are the Fiorello pears that inspired this tart. None were killed in the making – they died a more brutal death, straight into my mouth!
2 comments
A yummy treat without the guilt! So needed today! Thanks!
Thank you!