This delicious, comforting dessert is simple to prepare and a delight to consume.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 45 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 1 8-inch tart |
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter, chilled
- ½ cup cream cheese
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 apples – peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
- 1 pear – peeled, cored and sliced
- ¼ cup orange juice
- ⅓ cup brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1 ½ tablespoons cornstarch
- ½ cup apricot jam, warmed
Instructions
- Cut the cold butter and cream cheese into the flour with a knife or pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (This can also be done in a food processor: pulse the cold butter into the flour until the mixture resembles cornmeal; add the cream cheese and pulse until it’s the size of small peas.) When you squeeze a handful of the mixture, it should form a ball. Shape the dough into a round disk, wrap it in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- Toss the sliced apples and pear with the orange juice. Whisk together the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, and cornstarch. Toss the fruit with the sugar-spice mixture and set aside.
- Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Set out an 8-inch tart pan, or, if you’ll be making a free-form tart (galette), lightly grease a baking sheet.
- Roll the pastry out on a lightly floured work surface to form a 10-inch circle. Transfer the dough to the tart pan or baking sheet. Arrange the fruit decoratively in the tart pastry. If you’re baking the tart on a baking sheet, leave a 2-inch rim of dough and fold it up over the edge of the fruit (the pastry folds will overlap).
- Bake the tart in the preheated oven until the crust is browned and the filling is bubbly, about 30 minutes. Remove the tart from the oven and brush it with the apricot jam.
- Aluminum foil helps keep food moist, ensures it cooks evenly, keeps leftovers fresh, and makes clean-up easy.
- Please note the differences in ingredient amounts, as well as the exclusion of the chilling of the dough when following the magazine version of this recipe.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 361 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 51 g |
| Cholesterol | 47 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 4 g |
| Saturated Fat | 11 g |
| Sodium | 137 mg |
| Sugars | 24 g |
| Fat | 17 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Just average. I would not make this again. Will go back to my sour cream crust.
The fruit was delicious but the tart was so hard we needed a knife to cut it. A bit embarrassing since I brought it to family dinner.
This tart was delicious. It was a nice alternative to apple pie at thanksgiving.
I haven’t actually cut the pie yet, but I did pick a few pieces of fruit off of the top. Delicious. A few changes were made because of the ingredients that were already in the house. I used about 6 small sand pears and 2 small golden delicious apples. Because I had so much fruit (I had to use it all as the apples were becoming wrinkled in the fruit bowl) I used a 1/2 cup of brown sugar. Used all spice instead of cardamom. 1/8 teaspoon of ginger and almond essence. I also did not use all of the liquid. As you can see from the picture, I didn’t arrange the fruit either. The pears stay crunchy. Crust nice. I prefer a sweet crust. Husband loved it
Fantastic recipe as is, but also super flexible. Have used whatever fruit or jam I have on hand with equally delicious results. Makes quite and impression when brought to dinner parties.
The taste of pear did not come out, and nutmeg was too strong.
My 12 year old daughter has made this recipe many times, and it never fails to please. She does drain out the orange juice – otherwise you will have an apple tart mess. She pain stakingly arranges the fruit in a beautiful design, and the presentation is gorgeous. She has made it in small pans for individual servings and in a large pan. It’s simply delicious.
I had trouble with the crust. I used gf flour but even so, the dough was just crumbly and couldn’t be rolled out. I ended up pressing it into the pans. I wanted to make mini tarts so I used 5 mini tart/quiche dishes I got from World Market. I think it would actually fit better in 4 so that when the fruit bakes down it still looks full. The cardamon seemed a little strong to me, I’d probably cut it down a little bit next time so it doesn’t stand out quite as much.
This is a very nice adaptable method! I’ve got my second pear/honey/peach-jam/almond version in the oven right now. Always fun to get the baking bug and realize you have no brown sugar, etc. 😉 I’m keeping this one on hand!
I swapped regular flour for a gluten free blend from Costco and it turned out fine. I also made a regular flour one. I used 4 ripe Bartlett pears, no apples, in each one. I poured all the spice juice in and cooked for 30 minutes and it was perfect. I used Calphalon 9″ spring form non-stick pans. I greased the pans a little with butter. Slid right off. I flattened the dough out to about a 7″ disk then chilled the dough for 1-2 hours before rolling it. It was a little stiff but the rolling pin worked fine to get it to the width I needed. It was easy to tear away pieces and add them back to other parts of the crust as needed. I chilled the flour overnight in the fridge before making the dough. This seemed to help the butter and flour blend well in the food processor (using the “pulse” mode). Then I added the cream cheese and pulsed some more. Total pulsing time was about 3-4 minutes.
After reading the reviews, I decided to add a bit of powdered sugar and a pinch of salt to the dough in my food processor. I put the chilled butter cubes and four ounces of the cream cheese in with the flour. After pulsing, I dumped it all out on parchment paper. It didn’t want to clump together so I put it back in the food processor. I decided to add a bit of vanilla, a squirt of lemon juice, and a half tsp. of water. I pulsed it again and dumped it out on the parchment paper. This time it let me shape it into a round flat shape. I wrapped it up and put it in the fridge while I prepared the fruit. I used a Fuji apple, a Granny Smith, and a bartlet pear. I grated a bit of nutmeg, added the cinnamon, and put in a quarter tsp. of pumpkin pie spice as I didn’t have cardamom. I squeezed lemon juice over the apples instead of using the orange juice and poured the brown sugar and a bit more of the corn starch over them with the spices. I let that sit awhile so I could prepare the crust. It had the right amount of juice. I rolled the dough between two sheets of parchment paper which made it easy to get the right size and to place it in a tart pan. I cut the excess dough off and cooked it to test it out. Very buttery and flakey. Next time I would use less sugar with the apples, cook it longer with aluminum foil cover, and do the crust just like I did. Yummy!
The rating is based on the amount of time it took my two boys and husband to finish the leftovers – 2 days! The other desert I served along side of this at Thanksgiving dinner was gone in the same seating.
Did the crust in a food processor. It did not hold as the recipe indicated that it would. I used the recipe amount of cream cheese and butter..the dough was crumbly. I never worked with a crust made with cream cheese…when I dumped it out on the counter, it seemed powdery like all the flour did not incorporate…I kneaded the dough quite a bit to get it to stick together and it felt very stiff..I refrigerated dough for 1/2 hour. Slightly difficult to roll out but it lifted well and I fit it into a 9 and 1/2 tart pan. I used 2 MacIntosh apples and 2 Anjou pears..made the filling and let it sit in juice and drained per suggestions from other recipes. I also doubled the amount of corn starch based on other remarks about the filling being too runny. I saw some other reviewers had added additional corn starch also…the flavors of the filling were awesome. I did not have the any apricot jelly so I heated up some mango jelly and it worked just fine. I cut the apples and pear thinly and took my time and made a nice patterned filling. I overfilled the crust by about 1/2 inch higher..Glad I did..as it cooled, it seemed to settle and I found the finished product was now level with the crust. Everyone loved the dessert. It wasn’t too sweet and the cardamon added a nice flavor. I was worried that it would be runny because I could see the level of juice rising in the tart as it cooled. The crust turned out great and flaky. Wasn’t runny at all..great dessert..difficult crust
Amazing ! I used pears apples and little powder almond, read carefully the reviewers …it’s very helpfull
This turned out fantastic! I loved the crust:)
Great recipe! The crust is divine! I have made it with and without the cardamom (my mother does not care for it) and it was wonderful either way! I use extra orange juice and pears for more flavor.
Delicious with mascarpone! I also added almond extract & lemon juice to OJ mixture, and sliced almonds on top. I used 2 pears and 2 apples. Besides these minor changes, everything else as directed and it was delicious.
This is the first recipe that I’ve been successful with a pie crust (I made the gallete version). My pear was very soft so I hid it on the bottom of the tart. The dough could use a bit more flavor.
I followed the directions exactly and it came out wonderful. i did soak the fruit then drain the liquid. The only trouble i had was rolling out the dough because i didn’t have anything to use- i tried with an empty wine bottle, with out much success. It might not look great but i could not stop eating it. i would next time use more fruit in my 9 inch pan. DELICIOUS!
I had difficulty with the dough. I used the food processor method and refrigerating it made it hard to work with. I ended up pressing it into the tart pan. I consulted a favorite cookbook recipe which recommended adding confectioners sugar to the dough for sweetness, so I brushed some on top of the dough inthe pan. to prevent the juice from making the crust soggy, they also recommended brushing the jam onto the crust before adding the apples, which I did. I used an apple peeler/corer/slicer to get uniform slices and hand sliced the pear. Rather than mix the apples with the sauce, I arranged the slices in the tart pan in a circle and intermingled the pear. I poured the sauce on top and brushed it around but used a little less OJ because my apples were a little soft. It’s baking and looks fabulous but I;m rating this a 4 because the dough was hard to work with.
I didn’t have cream cheese, so I used another pastry dough recipe (Which turned out great), but I kept the filling the same. The sauce mixture didn’t boil and thicken even after baking for an extra 15 minutes, so it came out a little runny. It still tasted pretty good, but the orange juice flavor was a little too strong. I felt it was a relatively simple tart to make, and with a couple modifications, would be extremely good for any occasion.