Savory Pear and Blue Cheese Tart
This tart is wonderful to serve as an appetizer at holiday parties. All of the components can be made separately in advance. Right before guests arrive you can build the tart and heat it briefly for a no hassle treat that is delicious and very impressive. It will also travel well.
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This recipe will make 6 4-inch round tarts. I recommend using shells such as these
Ingredients:
- pâte brisée (see recipe below)
- roquefort cheese
- goat cheese
- brie (Camembert is a good option, but any creamy brie will work)
- heavy cream
- 6 bosc pears (not too ripe or they’ll fall apart)
- walnuts, toasted and chopped
- butter
Method:
- Roll pâte brisée into tart shells and blind bake. Mine took about 20 minutes at 400 degrees but it will depend on the size of your shells and your oven (see tips below).
- Remove any rinds from cheese.
- Crumble and add to food processor, blend until just combined. Add cream, don’t over-mix (cheese can curdle). You’re looking for a spreadable cheese consistency with a soft blue cheese flavor. I’d recommend you start by adding 2 parts blue cheese, 1 part goat, 1 part brie and a good splash of heavy cream. Adjust to taste.
- Peel pears, chop.
- Add whole butter to a sautoir or saute pan. Get the pan nice and hot.
- Cook pears in butter, caramelizing them.
- Drain pears, add a bit of pepper (no salt).
- Add pears to tart shell with some walnut crumbles.
- Add cheese, spread with a small offset spatula.
- Add to 250 oven until cheese is warm and spreads.
Pâte Brisée
This is a wonderful all-purpose pastry dough that can be used for quiches, savory and sweet tarts.
Ingredients:
- 12 ounces all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 7 ounces cold butter, chopped (you can use 8 oz if you want the dough to be easier to work with, but the final product will be less flaky)
- 1/3 cup cold water
Method:
- Add flour, butter and salt into a food processor
- Pulse on and off until the mixture is crumbly.
- Slowly add the water with the machine running just until the dough forms a ball.
- Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for at least 2 hours.
- Roll into whatever application it’s being used for.
- Chill again for at least 30 minutes before baking or the dough will shrink in the oven.
- Blind bake at 375-400. (Blind baking means to cook the dough completely before adding the other ingredients, such as custard for a quiche). Times will vary depending on size. We had a saying at culinary school. “When is the pate brisee done? When it’s done.” See tips below.
Tips:
If using a tart shell, as with the above recipe, you’ll want to add uncooked beans over parchment paper for approximately the first 2/3 of the cooking time. This prevents the dough from rising due to air bubbles forming in the crust. For extra insurance, use a fork to gently press a few holes into the bottom of the shell before baking. This is known as docking.
You’ll notice that the dough is coming up over the edges of the tart shell. I do this as an extra precaution against shrinkage.
For this particular tart, I recommend cooking the shell at 375 for 15-20 minutes with the beans, then carefully removing them and cooking for an additional 5 minutes at 400 degrees. That’s what worked with my oven. You may need to tweak things a bit. It’s a finicky dough, but the results are wonderful.
Caramelized pears. Cook them on a medium-high heat, tossing periodically when they start to brown. If you don’t use high heat they won’t hold their shape as well. Scrape the brown bits that develop on the sides and bottom of the pan to incorporate them into the pears and prevent them from burning. I had to chop these smaller before they would fit into the shells but I wanted them to let them cook first.
Happy Holidays!
wow this is first class
Thank you!!!
This looks delicious – I love the combination of pears and blue cheese!
It’s very good, I highly recommend it! I brought it to Thanksgiving as an appetizer and it was a hit.
This looks delicious! I’ll have to make it for a party or something, since my husband doesn’t like blue cheese. :-) How do you get your tart crust to look so perfect? My pie/tart crusts always look a little sloppy. Thanks for stopping by my blog, by the way!
Not a problem, I loved visiting your blog! Beautiful photos.
I highly recommend this for parties, it’s a huge crowd pleaser. Also, I haven’t always been a fan of blue cheese and it was recipes like this that converted me. The combination of the milder creamy cheeses with the blue cheese make it softer in flavor. The sweetness of the pears also balance it out. Bring it to a party, but see if you can get him to try a bite!
Oh, and when I know I’m taking a photo of the tart shell I bake a few extra. One of them usually works out :)
The rest is just practice!
I’ve been on a blue berry kick lately and this just made my mouth water!!!
oh, these look amazing! I may switch my plan for apple tarts to this – do you think it would hold to do as a free-form tart?
I guess it depends on the shape. Do you mean a galette? The cheese will most likely spread if there’s nothing holding it on the sides.
yeah, and you may be right about the spreading. oh well, I may try anyhow.
Let me know how it turns out!
will do, i’ll be posting mine on Sunday, Saturday if I have time.
This looks amazing! I’m definitely going to try this. Your crust is perfect! I have trouble getting mine to look so good and they also shrink – even with beans to hold it down. I guess I need to keep practicing until I get it just right. Thanks for sharing – love your site!
Are you chilling the dough before both rolling and baking? The colder the dough, the less it will shrink.
Thanks for the pate brisse techniques! I cannot cook anything sweet (actually I have up until now refused, call it a macho thing). But I am preparing for some underground competitions and I need to start learning! You have such great posts. I consider this a prime source!