How to make “Pear and Almond Tart

 

Are you are looking for a seasonal dessert in fall? If yes, it would be the one for you. I just made the lovely “Pear and Almond Tart” last weekend by following the recipe from Just One Cook Book.

It only takes 3 steps, making a sweet tart crust, making almond cream filling, and assembling pears with filling. The recipe is for a 9 to 10-inch tart. Just give it a trial. It would be easier than you thought.

 Step 1, making a sweet tart crust from scratch:

The ingredients of a sweet tart crust are 170g of all-purpose flour, 10g of almond meal, 60g of icing sugar, 1/4 tsp of sea salt, 113g of unsalted butter, a large egg and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.

Flour, almond meal and icing sugar need to be mixed well before you rob in cold butter. Next, add in the egg and vanilla extract. Slightly work on the dough into a ball, flatten the ball, chill it in fridge for 30 minutes at lease.

Once the dough chilled, shape it by a rolling pin and put into a non-stick tart tin, then put it back to fridge for another 30 minutes.

Now, to bake the tart crust. Put a baking paper on it, pour in baking stones or dry beans, set it under blind-baking at 180⁰C. Once it is baked for 20 minutes, take the crust out of oven, move away the baking sheet and stones, then bake it for more 5 minutes.

Well, here might be a benefit for you. The sweet crust can be made a few days ahead of your baking day, if you are too busy to do it in one day.

 Step 2, making almond cream filling:

While waiting the baked crust chilled, let’s make the creamy filling. The filling is made of 113g unsalted butter, 120g icing sugar, 120g almond meal, 15g all-purpose flour, ¼ tsp sea salt, 2 large eggs, 1.5 tsp pure vanilla extract. The butter and egg need to be set in room temperature before you mix the filling.

The last step, assembling and baking:

Preheat your oven at 180⁰C. Slice 3 pears, and mix in lemon juice to keep the pears from getting brown. At this point, apply the almond cream filling in the baked crust, then arrange the sliced pears.

By the way, if the pears aren’t ripe enough, you may follow the link for boiling pears before you assemble the tart.

Great, time to bake! Get the tart baked for 30 to 40 minutes at 180⁰C, then use a bamboo stick to check if it’s done properly.  

Miracle at Bali

It was a beautiful and speechless sunset on Christmas Eve, 24th Dec 2014.
A gentle man smiled at me tenderly and encouraged me step forward for sunset shots.
My seat in the lounge was about 10 steps behind him. He drank his beer slowly but didn't take any photos. I couldn't help to take a photo from my seat. I would like to send him but not sure if it's too abrupt.
I thought it was just another solo trip before he came to me.
I got a huge courage and showed him my photo which he was a part of the picture, then asked his email for sending that photo. He said he didn't take any device with him on his vacation. So we just had a short chatting before he left the lounge.

The reason I stayed at the hotel one night just because I didn't want to stay alone on Christmas Eve. I would like to feel some cheerful atmosphere. I told him I would move to a villa on the second day.

The morning of Christmas I saw him having his breakfast alone. A "Hi" with a smile between each other. I didn't dare to share his table so just found another table for myself. Suddenly he came to me and asked if I knew where was my villa situated. Then coming a short chatting and asked me the night out for dinner.
"Why not?" came from my inner voice."He seems a good man."  "It's good to have a companion on Christmas."
So I accepted the invitation even we didn't exchange our name each other.

Everything seems alright and easy to stay with him, and everything goes so fast and feels so right. Which he said " We never knew it" I called that as "FATE". How could we make sure and tell " It's him" or "It's her" in the crowds. And what a good luck and gift we had found each other!

It was never easy to manage a distance relationship. He just showed me his firm wills and comfort me" we will figure out".

"Let's see where it will go?"  He said......

Issues In These Days

Here I am is my last station of this business trip, Donguan, China. Where our factory is outside the downtown. As people well known that security issue always exists in this city, we won't go far from the hotel we stay. So I got more silent hours playing with myself.
Our team has lacked of manpower for a long time. Though there is 1/3 new staffs in my team, they still make these audit projects successfully proceeded. I knew the experienced staffs felt heavy loading but I got no helpful solution for them. They counted themselves and did their best. They all sacrificed their time with their families during this trip. I profoundly felt grateful to all of them and thanks God to give me these good staffs.
More 3 days, we are going to our hometown. I almost can imagine how difficult the following jobs will be, the expectation of upper management, the effective coaching on new staffs, the deficiency of resources, the uncompleted works,...etc. Those issues all test my will and patience. However, there seems no way to escape and no time to make daydream.
So guess what! To survive myself in such hard issues, some days I just released my pressure by eating and sleep, and it worked sometime.

Negative Emotion

Have you ever the experience that you had paid a lot of efforts but somehow you got only critical comments? Two days ago, I felt frustrated by such situation, and moreover, I hated I couldn't control my tears rolling down eventually. I felt stressed, weak, tired and confused. I almost got crushed by a series of top-down instructions. I questiond myself if I should keep moving on the way I chosed?

The new boss wondered why I had the irregular reaction. According to his saying, this was his style of communication called as "brain storming". As for my personal opinion, I really don't appreciate such critical attitude. I think it's not appropriate to judge others in a picky tone, especially at the first meeting without any understanding base between.

I felt deeply down but need to force myself to face the upcoming difficuties. Now I'm trying to pick up my confidence and courage. I think I shouldn't be beaten off just at the first round. I would be a loser if I run away from this examination.

Here is the quotaion to encourage myself. (from Living Life Fully)

The key to cherishing yourself is recognizing that you are valuable, lovable and definitely worth being cherished. Once you are ready to make this decision for yourself, you will discover an inner confidence that was trapped just behind your fears. ~by Michelle Morris-Spieker

Hi Apa kabar, Jakarta

I had kept my blog blank for quite a long period. There was no special reason just without inspiration to write. I asked myself not to be sunk by those anonymous stuff and feelings. Sometimes to keep busy was the good therapy to put myself in the status of "HAPPINESS". Well, try to imagine, if you had spent out of your energy during the daytime, how could you have power left to fight with the inner voice?

It's the last night of my first bisiness trip in 2011. I'm in Jakarta. I had been trying to keep my mood in balance these days. Since this place was always connected with my heart in some way, special friends and special memories. I would like to cherish every chance we meet and hold on the moments to share with those whom I care about. It's a pity that I only could stay 3 days this time and the departure is coming tomorrow. So here I would like to say "Selamat tinggle" (Goodbye) to those lovely friends.

I got some issues about forgiveness and giving these days. It was not so easy. I had been trying to learn and practice more about that. I knew I am not as smart as what I behaved actually. I still laughed loudly to hide my real feelings. Sometimes I almost persuade myself that I didn't care about those unpleasant stuff at all. I believe the saying that everything happened for a reason. So I think it's must be meaningful what I experienced. Maybe I don't know the real answer now, but I would learn something from these days eventually.