HHDD #15 - Pear Tart

This is my first entry in Hay Hay It's Donna Day (HHDD). I am a great fan of Donna Hay, so I am thrilled to be participating in this blogging event established to honour her kitchen expertise.

This month's HHDD is being hosted by TriniGourmet, who has chosen the theme of tarts. There are so many gorgeous tarts that I could have made for this event; however, practicality took over, and I searched for a recipe that would primarily use what I already had in the pantry (namely, a pot of sour cream that is fast approaching its use-by date!). For this reason, I settled on a peach tart from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2. Unfortunately, peaches are not in season in Australia at the moment, so I substituted pears for the peaches.

The recipe is as follows:

1 sweet shortcrust pastry shell (ready made or make your own)

3/4 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons caster sugar

1 egg

1 egg white

1 tablespoon sugar

3 large pears, peeled, cored and sliced

1 tablespoon sugar, extra

Whisk together sour cream, sugar and whole egg in a bowl, then pour into the tartshell and bake in a preheated oven for 10 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Remove the tart from the oven and increase the oven temperature to 180 degrees Celsius. Whisk the egg white until it forms soft peaks, then stir through the sugar and pear slices until coated. Spoon the fruit mixture on top of the tart and bake for 20 minutes or until golden. Cool.

I was a little disappointed with my pear version of this tart. I kept the pear slices fairly chunky (approximately cutting each pear into eighths) to match Donna's peach tart photo, but I found that the fruit didn't quite cook through, even though the egg white topping was well and truly done. I also found that the juice cooked out of the pears and pooled on top of the tart. Maybe these problems would have been avoided if I had used peaches. However, although the cream filling of this tart is smooth, creamy and pleasant on the palate, it didn't have that "wow" factor for me, so I probably wouldn't make this tart again.

Thanks to TriniGourmet for hosting this round of HHDD, and I look forward to seeing all the really great tarts in the roundup on October 6!