Honey Pear Tarts | Circe
‘I made you honeyed pears,’ I said.
He held up his hands, showing a half-eaten fruit, shining with juice. ‘I found them, thank you.’ He paused. ‘I have something to show you.’
Circe
Madeline Miller
I’ve always had so much motivation and ideas I want to achieve. I pick up hobbies at an incredible rate - the spare room in my apartment has boxes filled with gardening supplies, a sewing machine, knitting and crochet supplies, to name a few.
This blog was one such hobby, I’ve found it hard to focus on it in the last few years. Starting recipes or taking photos and finding it impossible to finish them. It’s only in the last month I received a diagnosis for ADHD and medication for it. And suddenly things make a lot more sense. I can finally finish things. It’s like my brain has become coherent.
I’m excited to see if I can keep this coherency, especially for this blog. Making recipes, taking the photos - brings me such joy. I was so happy to kick the year off with a recipe from Circe. A book that I absolutely loved. What weird kid in school wasn’t obsessed with Greek mythology?
There are so many vivid descriptions of food in this book, with beautiful descriptions of wild strawberries and platters of meats and cheeses. The idea of honeyed pears were most appealing though. I first tried a roasted pear and honey ice-cream, but couldn’t get it quite right. But these tarts ended up absolutely incredible. A very easy recipe if you want to impress someone at a dinner.
Honey Pear Tarts
Makes 6-7 small tarts or 1 big tart
Ingredients
Tart shell
800g biscuits (I used digestives and chocolate ripple biscuits)
115g butter, melted
Filling
400g cream
150ml milk
100g raw caster sugar
50g honey or substitute + 20g
2 tbsp cornflour
1tsp agar agar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Sea salt
3-4 pears, peeled, cored and cut in half
Juice of one lemon
Tart crust
Using a blender or a food processor crush the biscuits until they are very fine. You can also put them under a tea towel and use a rolling pin to go over them if you do not have a blender etc.
Combine the crushed biscuits and melted butter, mixing well. Prepare your tart case/s by lightly greasing them, before pushing the biscuits mix into each one firmly until it covers the bottom and the sides. You don’t want it to be too thick here, but it needs to keep its shape.
Place the prepared tart crusts into the freezer for 20 minutes. While they are chilling preheat your oven to 180C. Bake the chilled tarts for approx. 10 minutes or until they have darkened in colour. If you’re making it with chocolate biscuits, follow the time instead of the colour. Remove them from the oven and place to the side to cool completely.
Filling
Combine the milk and cornflour together, mixing well until there are no lumps. In a saucepan, place the milk mixture, cream, sugar, and honey and heat over a medium-low heat. After about five minutes, add in the agar agar, vanilla and a pinch of salt.
Continue to stir the filling mixture until it begins to thicken. Once it has thickened to the point that it heavily coats the back of a spoon you can remove it from the heat. Carefully distribute the filling mixture into the prepared tart cases. Place them into the fridge overnight to cool and set.
These are delicious as is - but even better when you add a honey roasted pear on top. Preheat your oven to 180C, and line a baking tray with baking paper. Place the pears face down on the tray and brush the lemon juice over them. Drizzle the extra 20g of honey over the top and add a pinch of sea salt.
Bake for approx. 25 minutes or until they are golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Once the tarts have set and the pears have cooled, place them on top and enjoy!
