Good pears aren’t easy to come by in Dubai for some reason: one finds them but they tend to be very hard and don’t ripen easily. But the other day I got lucky and found wonderfully fragrant tender ones at the market, so snapped them up and made this frangipani tart. Frangipani (also called “frangipane” in French), is a sweet almond filling often used in pastries and cakes in France and Italy. It lends itself well to a variety of fruits, and particularly to the subtle earthy sweetness of pears.

What I love about this particular recipe is that nobody will be able to tell it’s gluten and processed sugar free, which is always a huge bonus as far as I’m concerned.

Notes:

If you don’t have pear, just use apples, 2 cups of rasperries/blueberries/peaches/plums/apricots/nectarines as all these fruit go well with frangipani.

For the flour, I swear by Bob’s Redmill 1:1 gluten free flour but if you have a gluten free flour you like to use instead, go right ahead.

Ingredients

Crust

• 1 1/2 cups Bob’s Redmill 1:1 gluten free flour (can be found at Spinneys, Choithrams and many other Dubai supermarkets)
• 2 tbsp coconut sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup butter, cold and cut into small cubes
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp ice cold water

Filling

• 1 1/2 cups almond flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp almond extract (if you want a very almondy taste)
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 3 tbsp butter, melted
• 4 medium sized pears

Instructions

1. Place flour in a mixing bowl. Add sugar and salt, mixing well.
2. Add butter to the flour and with your hands or a pastry cutter and mix until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the cold water and mix lightly until a ball forms. Roll it out onto a clean floured counter top, place it on a 9-inch / 22 cm pie plate and refrigerate, covered, for an hour.
3. Preheat oven to 375F
4. Place the pie plate in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until lightly colored but not browned.
5. Meanwhile, to prepare the frangipani, mix the butter, almond flour, maple syrup, eggs, vanilla and almond extracts thoroughly with a whisk or in a blender.
6. Peel, halve and core the pears. Thinly slice each half crosswise into 1/2 cm strips, keeping the strips together so as to maintain the shape of the half pear
7. Pour the frangipani mixture onto the warm crust and with a spatula, delicately place each pear half on the pie
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden and slightly puffy