Fresh Pear Shortcake is a modern British recipe for a classic dessert of fresh pears topped with a cream cheese and egg custard on a shortcrust base that's baked to cook. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Fresh Pear Shortcake.
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Fresh Pear Shortcake: A British recipe for a dessert of fresh pears topped with a cream cheese and egg custard on a shortcrust base that's baked to cook.
Ingredients:
150g self-raising flour
25g ground rice
finely-grated zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon
50g dark muscovado sugar
150g butter
2 pears, peeled, cored and halved
110g full fat soft cheese (or you can use my home-made cream cheese recipe to prepare your own)
1 egg
a few drops of almond essence
flaked almonds, to decorate
icing sugar, for dusting
crème fraîche, to serve
Method:
In a bowl, mix together the flour, ground rice, lemon zest and sugar. Rub the butter into this mixture until the combination resembles fine breadcrumbs. Lightly work this mixture together to form a soft ball of dough.
Press the resultant dough into a lightly-greased 20cm loose-bottomed fluted flan tin and pack it down well. Transfer to an oven pre-heated to 190°C and bake for about 22 minutes, until just very lightly browned.
Take the pears, and starting at the stalk end of each some 1cm from the top cut into slices about 3mm thick. Place each pear half on the shortcake and fan out the slices. Sprinkle the lemon juice over the top.
Beat together the cream cheese, egg and almond essence until smooth. Spoon this mixture over the pears and the shortcake, sprinkle over the flaked almonds then transfer to an oven pre-heated to 180°C and bake for about 45 minutes, or until golden brown.
This can be served hot or cold with crème fraîche.
