pear (or apple) spiced almond tartlets with vanilla crème anglaise

a welcome to fall baking season

if there is one season out of the year that feels like the baking season to me it is fall. i love to start a crisp weekend morning with warm breakfast bakes (like sweet breads and snacking cakes). i also love to make sweet and savory pies and holiday cookie boxes. there’s something about the change in weather that makes me want to eat desserts with every delicious fall fruit (apples, pears, squash), nuts, and lots of spices. 

this recipe is one i make annually to kick off fall baking as it has all the above: fall fruit, nuts, and spices. i truly love this pear (or apple) almond frangipane tart (however, in this case i’ve used marzipan and it is technically more of a tartlet).

every year i get inspired to try out new formats, and this year i’ve double-crusted individual tartlets (although, it’s actually just one crust, so “covered” would be a more appropriate word). this method of making tartlets is shockingly easy. lining tartlet shells is one of my least favorite baking tasks ever, but this method is somehow quicker and easier than carefully rolling out and lining a tart pan. it’s a little harder than pressing a crust into a standard 8-9” tart pan but easier than rolling out small portions of dough, lining little tart pans, and then crossing your fingers that they don’t slide in during the blind bake. i have included a 90-second video showing you how to shape the tartlets from a few different angles. and i’ve shown two different tools so that you can make them with the kitchen equipment you have on hand. 

because this tartlet is mostly pastry dough and fruit (whereas normally the filling is the star of the show), i have subbed frangipane (which i normally use) for spiced marzipan. it both amplifies and condenses the almond flavor, and it adds those lovely warm spices i crave. 

this tart, because of the different quantities of all the components, is not super sweet. so to sweeten the whole thing up, and add a new texture, the two extra egg yolks left over from making the dough are turned into a cooling vanilla crème anglaise that pairs oh-so-nicely with the slightly warm tarts. leftover tarts are also delicious a day or two later for breakfast or a snack. 

this recipe is designed to be made in a food processor which means there is not that much active time on the prep side (the marzipan and dough take just a few minutes each). the assembly, including peeling and coring the fruit and shaping the individual tartlets, is what ends up taking some time (just a little over 3 minutes per tartlet). if you do not have a food processor you can use a blender for the marzipan and make the dough by hand or in a stand mixer. 

one last note on fruit choice, theo and i preferred these with pears (texturally they were softer, and almonds and pears are a match made in heaven), but you can use apples too (it’s what our downstairs neighbor preferred).