Gluten Free Pear Tart Featuring The Practicing Mammal

A beautiful aspect to blogging is making connections with people you would never otherwise meet in "real life".  When I recently posted how going gluten free has made such a difference in my health, a reader with a blog of her own sent me an e-mail about her family's gluten free lifestyle.  She even included a recipe for a divine sounding Pear Tart.  Opening up the e-mail that day I found this lovely little note:

Hey, Misty...I read your blog post recently about trying out gluten free.  We have been primarily a gluten free family since time immemorial, and my big daughters are amazing bakers of gluten free treats. Forced to do something with the abundance of pears off of our tree, we started sourcing ideas.  This is a conversion/adaptation from an old "Fall Baking" mini magazine put out by Gold Medal flour.   Polly just made this last night, and I thought I would share it with you, it was so amazing...

After I saw how easy it was and how delicious it sounded, I asked her to send me a photo so I could feature her generosity right here on my own blog.


The Practicing Mammal has seven children, ages five to 24.   She home schools, lives on Vancouver Island, Canada and writes a witty and opinionated blog called Practicing Mammal.  This Catholic-Attachment Parenting-writing mama covers everything from babies to burnout. Please stop over and read a few of her rants and then come back here and check out this easy recipe.

Pear Tart Practicing Mammal

Heat oven to 375 
Ingredients:

Gluten free pecan crust (recipe below)

3 or 4 medium pears

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 T. rice flour

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

For the crust:
1 cup rice flour

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup pecans

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp. grated orange peel

1/2 cup butter

To Make the Crust: 

Mix all ingredients except butter in bowl.  
Cut in butter using pastry blender until crumbly.
Pat into a pie pan so that there is a bit of a lip on the crust but not all the way up.

Bake 8 minutes.
Set aside to cool.

To Make the Filling: 

Cut each pear lengthwise in half and remove core.  

Place each pear cut side own on a cutting board and cut crosswise into thin slices.  

Lift each half with a spatula and arrange on baked crust, separating and overlapping slices to retain the pear shape to cover surface of crust.  

Mix remaining ingredients and sprinkle over the pears.  

Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown and pears are tender.

We served this with a drizzle of sweetened sour cream over top. 

Thanks again Practicing Mammal!