TWD: Rosy Poached Pear and Pistachio Tarte, revisited

Oh boy, it's still Tuesday, even here in middle-Europe, and I got to give a confirmation of operation!

I made a new dough in the evening. A friend passed by and patiently waited until I did fit the dough in the tarte shell. While it was baking I wanted to present him the remaining failed dough shell.
And - miracles happen - after two days on the sill between the outer and the inner window, the tarte shell was perfect!! So I spread the remaining pastry cream on it, placed the pears and caramelized pistachios on it - and it was perfect!
My friend and I just LOVED it! It did not only taste so wonderful, it also looked great!

 Before baking                                                                                                 The tarte formerly known as Failed

Now, lets hope that the two mini-tartes I baked today for my nice colleague are still well tomorrow. I placed them in the fridge, although the recipe calls for eating them in between 4 hours. But I had to cheat a bit - because I made an easier, safer dough today I had to bake the tarte with the cream and the pears already on it. So, it looks a bit  different than it maybe should, and they have to wait until tomorrow to be eaten. I cross my fingers that in the fridge they won't get too soggy.

TWD: Rosy Poached Pear and Pistachio Tarte

So, first I got to say that this Rosy Poached Pear and Pistachio Tarte chosen by Lauren of I'll eat you is tasty, tasty, tasty. Just what I like. A tarte dough tasting a bit like shortbread (which is similarly crumbly), poached pears, a colorful and at the same time perfectly taste-matching topping by caramelized pistachios. The pear-pistachio combination is not only an eye-catcher, but also a wonderful combination of tastes.
And now the bad part.

First, again I had to learn the hard way to stick to the recipe. When it calls for poaching the whole pears, don't cut them in slices, only because you think that's easier to handle. The result will be, that the whole fruit is deep red. What is ok, but I sliced only one pear and halfed the other one - and there I saw how it was ment to look like, and what the text mentioned as "you will see how wonderful it looks with the deep red outside and the rosé inside of the pears".

Secondly, I really had troubles with the dough. I could not imagine that it should be that crumbly and not sticking together to one piece. So I filled way too much dough in my little molds. When I baked it, it came up. I tried to give it an emergency relief and put a whole lot of beans on them, and it was a bit better afterwards. But in the end, I do not think that's what it should look like.


It was the first time I made a dough that deviated a bit from the completely easy tarte dough I usually make, and what came out was a slight desaster. And the dough was really not a tough cookie. So I am a bit frustrated.
The dough was too high and thick, there was not enough room to really fill in the cream (I more or less spread some of it as good as possible), and, what was the worst part - it was too hard to cut.

As I said in the beginning, nevertheless I really liked it. It did look ugly when I started to eat it because I more or less had to spoon it out the mold. But it was more than tasty. So I really have to try it again, some other day. When I find enough courage.

I am not going to bring the other second little tarte to the office tomorrow. What is a pitty, because I made it for one of my nicest colleagues, who didn't arrive to get anything I made in the last weeks. And who has to listen to everybody else in the department, still weeks afterwards speaking about the cakes and crumbles and cookies I made (I guess they are, just like me, still surprised that I should be able to bake - that's not the usual image of me...). I have to think about something else to compensate her. And about what to do with the tarte shell, the poached pears and the pistacchio cream...