Sand crust with Almond-Pear becomes Quince Pie

Quince Pie (Based on an Almond-Pear recipe)

Another recipe from De keuken van ons moeder - The Kitchen of our mom cookbook. The many quince in my home warrant another sweet recipe. As I'm always interested in trying out new crusts, it's a pie. All moms in this cookbook bake lots of pies in a sleight of hand movement.

Serves 8

4 pears Doyenné (I used 4 quince, peeled, cored, sliced)
some almond slivers
4 tablespoons apricot jam (I used my own home-made quince jam)
The sand crust:
150 g butter
125 g sugar
1 pinch salt
1 egg
250 g flour
butter
The almond creme:
2 eggs
120 g sugar
2 tablespoons cream
100 g soft butter
100 g ground almonds

Knead the dough: butter with sugar, salt, the egg. Add the flour, and mix until the dough is homogenous. Make a ball and let it rest in the fridge for an hour at least. Roll out the dough until 3 cm thick (a bit more than 1'') and put it in a buttered pie tin. Poke holes in it.

Make the almond cream: whip the eggs and the sugar. Add first the cream, then the butter and lastly the almonds. Let this rest for a few minutes. Pour it on the crust. Garnish the almond cream with slices of fruit. I steamed the quince slices in advance, so as to soften them a bit.

Bake the pie 30-40 minutes in a 180 °C oven. It has to look browned. Five minutes before the end, add the almond slilvers.

Remove the pie from its tin, put the apricot (or quince) jam on top, let it cool a little. Serve when tepid.

Notes: I had a lot of trouble getting this crust to form a ball and the ball to form a dough I could manage easily into the tin. I also prebaked the crust by itself for 15 minutes without the filling, then later watched the baking time closely so as not to burn the cake. Once the crust was baked, it was fine, and dry. I skipped the parts with the almond slivers and served jam not on the cake, but as optional at the table.