Elegant Valentine Dessert – Heart Shaped almond and pear tarts
This elegant valentine dessert is such a lovely option if you’re looking for a two-person dessert! It’s two mini almond and pear tarts that I’ve made in heart shaped tart tins to give them a little extra festiveness! It’s the best valentines’ dessert for when you’re looking for something a little special!
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The Best Valentines Dessert
My Mum gave me a mini heart shaped tart tin for Christmas this year, and I’m embarrassed to say I have yet to use it! Luckily, with Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I though this tin would be perfect for the best valentines’ dessert idea – Almond and Pear tart!
Normally when I’m thinking of valentine’s day dessert ideas I gravitate towards chocolate (understandably I think!). But this year I’ve decided to go with a more elegant valentine dessert with gently poached pears and rich almond filling.
The combination really does make for the best valentines’ dessert!
Why make this pear and almond tart recipe?
- Cute: The heart shaped tin is so adorable and makes for a special little dessert
- Elegant: I’m all for simple desserts that you can throw together in a few minutes. In fact this chocolate mousse is one of my favorite desserts and it’s a breeze to make. That being said sometimes I’m looking for something a little more sophisticated and this elegant valentine dessert ticks all the boxes.
- Delicious: Pear and almonds go together so well!
What Do I Need to Make this Recipe?
Ingredients:
For the pastry you’ll need flour, butter, sugar, salt and water. You can also use your favorite store bought pastry if you’d prefer!
For the filling:
- A poached pear: You’ll need either a tinned pear, or you can poach your own pear! You’ll actually only need about half a small pear, but I like to poach both halves and have the other half with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce!
- Almond flour: Any form will work for this, so don’t worry too much if you have almond meal instead of almond flour!
- Butter, sugar, flour, vanilla extract and eggs
Equipment:
The only specialty equipment I use for this is two heart shaped tart tins that I’ve linked below. Other than that you’ll just need a heatproof bowl, a sauce pan and a whisk!
Helpful Products for this Recipe
How to make this Recipe:
Step 1: Make the pastry
We’ll start with the pastry for this lovely valentines day dessert!
To do so you’ll melt together the water, sugar, salt and butter and then add the flour into the hot liquid. You’ll stir the pastry together and then press it into your two tart tins.
Once the heart shaped tart tins are lined with pastry, you’ll blind bake them in order to achieve perfect crispness.
Step 2: Poach the pear
While the pastry is baking, it’s time to poach your pear! Combine the sugar, water, and lemon peel in a pan and let it simmer while you peel and halve the pear.
Let the pear simmer in the liquid for about 10-15 minutes until it is soft but still hold its shape.
I’ve taken a pretty simple approach to poaching pears here but if you want to learn more about poaching pears Thriving with Less has a great post all about poaching. You can follow those instructions for single-serving poached pears and then use some of the pears in your Valentine’s Day tarts and have the rest as a little dessert!
Step 3: Make the almond cream
Finally it’s time to prep the last ingredient! The almond filling! To do so cream together the butter and sugar and then add in the eggs followed by the dry ingredients.
Once it’s smooth, you’re ready to fill your mini heart shaped tarts!
Step 4: Assemble your elegant valentine dessert !
Start by spreading almond cream in the tart cases so that they are about 2/3 full.
Slice the pears and arrange them on the almond cream in an elegant design! Or as elegant as you can manage…
Step 5: Bake the almond and pear tart
Pop your tarts in the oven and let them bake until golden brown and perfectly set. It’ll take about 20 minutes!
Expert Tips
Crisp Pastry
This pastry recipe is really lovely, and it’s incredibly easy to work with. That being said for extra crisp pastry make sure your pastry is even and thin.
Blind baking the pastry before you fill it will also help achieve the perfect crisp pastry.
How to perfectly poach pears
You can absolutely use tinned pears in this recipe – it’ll still be great! But that being said, if you can get your hands on a good pear and have a little time, I encourage you to try poaching it yourself!
You start by making your poaching liquid, this is normally made of sugar, water and a range of spices or other flavorings. You can add cinnamon sticks, lemon peel , vanilla beans or whatever you like.
Once the sugar has dissolved in the liquid and your spices have had a moment to flavor the liquid, it’s time to get poaching. Peel and core your pears and then simmer them in the poaching liquid until they’re still holding their shape but are tender.
Glazing the pears
If you’d like to glaze your tarts, you can do so with the leftover poaching liquid! Simply boil it down until it reaches a thick honey like consistency and then brush it over the warm tarts.
Recipe FAQs
Do you need a heart shaped tart tin?
No! You can use any mini tart tin that you have on hand. Ideally you want a tin that’s about 4-5 inches in diameter! You can also buy a similar tin here.
Almond Meal vs almond flour
Almond meal is normally made from unbalanced almonds while almond flour is made from blanched almonds. This difference means that almond flour is generally finer than almond meal. For some recipes such as macarons that can make a big difference but for this recipe either will work!
Almond flour substitute
If you’re allergic to almonds or just don’t like them you can use a different nut flour. Hazelnut flour works particularly well in this recipe!
Can you make this even if it isn’t Valentine’s Day?
Absolutely, I actually use this recipe all the time!
Other Valentine’s Desserts To Try:
- This two person chocolate cake which ticks so many boxes
- This incredible raspberry and chocolate tart from Laura Loves to Cook
- A couple of mini lemon souffles which are easier than you would think!
- These ridiculously cute valentine Linzer cookies from Curly Girl Kitchen
- Or if you’re looking for a vegan option, try these vegan brownies from Katie Cakes
Elegant Valentine Dessert – Heart Shaped almond and pear tart
Equipment
- 2 Mini heart shaped tart tins
Ingredients
Pastry
- 30 g butter
- 1 tsp oil
- 1 tbsp water
- 1 tsp sugar
- Pinch salt
- 55 g flour
Almond Filling
- – 1 egg yolk
- 25 g sugar
- pinch salt
- 25 g almond
- 25 g butter
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp rum or amaro almond liquor
Poached Pears (Or use tinned pears)
- 300 ml water
- 100 g sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- Tbsp rum
- Cinnamon stick
- 1/2 Pear Or poach the whole pear and keep the leftovers for other uses!
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400°F
Make the Pastry
- Combine the butter, sugar, water, oil and salt in an oven safe bowl like a pyrex and place in the oven for 10 minutes or until fully melted and just starting to brown on the edges.
- Once the butter mixture is ready pour in the flour and stir quickly until it forms a dough. Let the dough cool slightly before pressing it into two heart shaped tart tins. Depending on the size of your tins you may have a bit of left over pastry!
- Bake your pastry cases for 10 minutes, or until golden, and then set aside to cool.
- Reduce the oven temperature to 375°F.
Poach the Pears (if poaching yourself)
- To start combine all of the poaching ingredients except the pear in a small saucepan and simmer on medium low until the sugar has dissolved.
- Peel the pear, slice in half and remove the core. Place the pears in the poaching liquid and simmer for 10 minutes covered before flipping them and simmering for another 10 minutes covered or until tender but still holding their shape.
Make the Almond Cream
- Cream together the butter, sugar and salt. Add the egg yolk, vanilla and alcohol and mix to combine. Finally stir in the almond flour and mix until smooth.
Assemble your tarts
- Fill the pastry shells with a couple spoons of almond and spread out. The tart should be about 3/4 full
- Thinly slice the poached pears and arrange on top of the almond cream. Depending on the size of your tarts, you'll probably only use a little less than half a pear. Left over pear is great as a dessert served with ice cream and chocolate sauce!
- Bake the tarts at 375°F for 18-20 minutes, or until the almond filling is set and lightly golden.
- If you’d like to glaze the tarts simply boil down the remaining poaching liquid until it’s about the consistency of honey and then brush it over the warm tarts.
This is such a beautiful idea and looks like the perfect dessert to make for my Valentine this week. Thanks for sharing it!
What a delicious sweet treat! Perfect for Valentine’s Day.
A classic in a fun shape!
This is so good
Thanks for all the tips to make this stunning dessert. I particularly love that I can just press the dough into the tins. Great recipe!
Such a beautiful recipe. I found tye instructions really easy to follow!
will be celebrating valentines with my girl friends and this looks the dessert we wanted to have.
Such a great valentines day treat! Loved how sweet and delicious it turned out!
This truly is elegant! And I absolutely love that almond filling with the sweet pears!
Definitely need a big slice of this tart! So good!
Love how they look, great for Valentines day