How to Bake Pear and Cranberry Crostata

Serves: 8

Preparation time: 50 mins

Cooking time: 1 hr 45 mins

Ingredients needed to make Pear and Cranberry Crostata:

For the dough:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 5 tbsp milk
• 3 sticks unsalted butter, diced
• 1 ½ tbsp sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 tsp salt

For the almond cream:

• ¼ cup flour
• 2 ¼ cups almond flour
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 14 tbsp unsalted butter
• 4 eggs
• Pinch of salt

For the filling:

• 6 Bosc pears, peeled, halved and cored
• ½ cup fresh cranberries
• 1 cup sugar
• 1’’ fresh ginger root, peeled and chopped into 4 pieces
• 1 egg, beaten
• ¼ cup unsalted butter

Cooking instructions for Pear and Cranberry Crostata:

• To make the dough, place the flour in the bowl of a stand mixer, equipped with a paddle attachment, and add sugar as well as a dash of salt into it.
• Process them until well combined and throw in the butter cubes.
• Continue to mix them together until they gather together with few chunks of butter peeping out.
• Place the yolks in a separate bowl and whisk them thoroughly, using hand mixer until the yolks break down to form pale, yellow mixture.
• Drizzle it into the dry mixture and beat them together until they form a dough.
• Wrap the dough in a plastic sheet and refrigerate for 4 hours.
• Meanwhile, to make the almond cream, place the butter and sugar in a clean canister of your stand mixer, fitted with paddle attachment, and beat them thoroughly into a light and frothy mixture.
• Fold in the almond flour and continue to beat until they mix properly.
• Crack the eggs into it, while whisking them into the mixture after each addition until properly incorporated into the blend.
• Dust plain flour into it, followed by a dash of salt and vanilla extract.
• Fold them into the mixture until well combined and refrigerate, covered, to chill.
• To make the roasted pears, warm up your oven to 350 degrees F.
• Arrange the pears in a roasting pan and sprinkle the ginger pieces over them.
• Toss them together and spread them into a single layer.
• Dust with sugar and add knobs of butter onto them.
• Roast in the oven for 45 minutes, agitating them from time to time, until they turn golden brown; set aside to cool.
• To assemble, split the dough into equal halves and roll out one of them onto a floured working counter, into a 12’’ wide circle, of about 1/8’’ in thickness.
• Place it onto a greased baking sheet and spread a large splodge of chilled almond cream onto it, so that it forms an 8 wide round on top of the dough.
• Scatter the pear chunks on top and arrange them in 2 layers of concentric circles.
• Toss the cranberries on top and fold the edges of the pie base over the filling to cover them partially.
• Smother them with a lashing of the beaten egg and bake in the oven for an hour or until the pie turns golden brown.
• Allow to cool on a wire rack.
• Slice and serve.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons