Pear and Cream Cheese Crumble Tart
Pear and Cream Cheese Crumble Tart is a delicious all season dessert with a balsamic vinegar flavoured cream cheese, in an oatmeal based crust.
Ingredients
Crust
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ⅓ cup rolled oats
- ½ cup brown sugar - packed
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Filling
- 1 pkg cream cheese, 8 oz or 250 gm - at room temperature. If the cream cheese is just out of the fridge, put it in a microwavable container and microwave it for 1 minute at 20% power.
- ½ cup white sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 ripe pears - cored and peeled and sliced into 8 wedges
- ¼ cup chopped pecans or almonds
Instructions
Crust
- Preheat oven to 350 ℉
- Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Add butter and mix until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- Press 2/3 of the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a greased 9 in (23 cm) tart tin (with removable bottom) or spring form pan. Bake for 7 minutes and then cool for 8 minutes
- Beat the cream cheese with the sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg, vinegar and vanilla; spread onto the crust.
- Arrange the pears over the cream cheese mixture and sprinkle evenly with the remaining oat mixture and nuts. Return to the oven and bake for 30 min. Let cool on a rack to room temp or serve slightly warm (I have also made this without nuts for those people with allergies and it tastes fine)
Peach and Cream Cheese Crumble Tart
- Replace the pears with fresh peaches and substitute White Peach Balsamic for regular Balsamic Vinegar. If using nuts, only use almonds.
Blueberry and Cream Cheese Crumble Tart
- Replace the pears with enough fresh blueberries to cover the top (about 1 cup) and substitute Blueberry flavoured Balsamic Vinegar for the regular Balsamic Vinegar. No nuts are used in this variation.