Baby Pear and Ricotta Tart

While browsing through The Toowoomba Chronicle this week, I spotted an irresistible recipe for Baby Pear and Ricotta Tart. The recipe comes from a new cookbook by Emiko Davies called Acquacotta, which focusses on Italian family recipes.

How cool does this tart look with the pears standing up and their stalks left on?  It's a bit like stargazy pie, but without the gruesome factor.

 
The biggest challenge that the recipe posed was finding baby pears, but I lucked in and my supermarket just happened to have baby beurre bosc  pears.  You don't have to core the pears for this recipe - when they are poached, the core goes soft enough to eat:

 
This is a smooth, creamy cheesecake with fruit - what is not to love:

I changed the order of proceedings a little from the recipe by making the pastry first and letting it chill while I poached my pears so that I could seamlessly move from poaching pears to lining the pie tin with pastry then adding the filling.

Would I make this again?  Absolutely - it is striking to look at and so delicious.