Pear, Almond And Amaretto Tart

From Lorraine Pascale's Cookbook - Made this as a round as didn't have an oblong tray big enough but I did do 1.5 the cake amount as it did not look enough for the size of my dish. After cooking brushed the top with melted apricot jam.

• 375 g pack of ready-rolled dessert pastry or 500 g pack of shortcrust pastry.
• 100 g soft butter.
• 100 g caster sugar.
• 100 g ground almonds.
• 3 tbsp plain flour.
• 1 medium egg.
• 1 tbsp amaretto liqueur.
• 411 g tin of pear halves, or 4 very ripe soft pears.

• Preheat the oven to 180°C / Gas Mark 4.
• Unravel the ready-rolled pastry and use it to line a flan tin. Roll it out a touch more, if necessary, to fit in perfectly. If using a block of pastry, then roll out to just bigger than the tin on a floured surface and use in the same way. Either way, be really careful to not stretch the pastry or pull it, as this will make it shrink in the tin when it cooks.
• Try and get the pastry right into the fluted edges of the tin. You can use a wooden spoon handle dipped in some flour to ease the pastry into the ‘flutes’. Cut off the excess pastry with a sharp knife and then sit the tin on a baking sheet and pop in the fridge to harden up a bit while you prepare the filling.
• Mix the butter and sugar together in a medium bowl either by hand or using a hand-held electric whisk (or in a freestanding electric mixer) until it is really soft and well combined. Then beat in the ground almonds and plain flour. Crack the egg in, add the amaretto liqueur, and then beat it hard so everything is combined. Remove the lined tin from the fridge and add the almond filling, spreading it out evenly so it is nice and smooth on top.
• Drain the tinned pears well in a colander and then on kitchen paper. Or peel, halve and decore the fresh pears, if using.
• Arrange the pear halves, cut side down, in the almond filling. If you lay the tin running from left to right in front of you, then lay a pear half in pointing away from you, then the next one pointing towards you and so on, so they are in an alternating pattern and all fit in perfectly.
• Bake in the oven for 35-45 minutes or until the filling is nicely puffed up and golden.