Pear, cardamom and dark chocolate frangipane

Ok, so I'm slightly frangipane obsessed. I seem to make it on a regular basis, especially since I swapped to using a shortbread base rather than pastry -I love the way it stays crisp even after a couple of days. I also find that it never sticks to the tin when baking. The only drawback is that it only covers the base and not the sides of the tin - this just makes me be more careful when removing from the tin and then trimming!
My baking buddy Amanda makes an amazing pear and cardamom loaf - we discovered this combo on a day trip into the Cotswolds. I wondered how this would work as a frangipane as I had loads of ground almonds and pears. Jam wouldn't work on the base I knew. Chocolate seems an odd addition but pear and chocolate go well together as do other combinations of two ingredients so I decided to try all three! Just the thin layer of finely grated chocolate just gives a bit of depth and richness to the tart that I really like. The cardamom is a perfumed taste in the background rather than an in-your-face overload.
Try it and see what you think...leave a comment and let me know!

Ingredients

For the shortbread base:

95g                  unsalted butter

45g                  caster sugar

135g                plain flour

For the frangipane topping

165g                unsalted butter

165g                caster sugar

3                      medium eggs

120g                ground almonds

45g                  plain flour

¼ tsp               ground cardamom

2                      pears peeled, cored and sliced

50g                  dark chocolate, finely grated

A rectangular baking tray measuring around 25cm x 15cm, preferably loose bottomed, greased

Method

To make the shortbread base

1.     Pre-heat the oven to 190/ Gas Mark 5

2.     Make sure that the butter is nice and soft and beat with the caster sugar until it is a smooth paste

3.     Mix in the flour until it is well incorporated and the dough starts to come together

4.     Bring the dough into a ball with your hands and tip onto a floured surface

5.     Roll out to a depth of around 2-3mm and shape to the same size as the base of the baking tin

6.     Put the rolled out dough into the tin and fork it well to stop in rising

7.     Bake in the pre-heated oven for 10-15 minutes until golden

8.     Set aside to cool

To make the frangipane

1.     Put all the ingredients except the pears into a bowl and mix well using a hand mixer or wooden spoon until well combined

To put it altogether

1.     Pre-heat the oven to 170/ Gas Mark 3

2.     Spread the grated dark chocolate over the cooled shortbread, leaving it in the tin, tapping to get an even cover. This only needs to be a very thin layer

3.     Gently spread over the frangipane mixture, making sure that it goes into the corners. I often use a piping bag to start off with and then spread out using an offset palette knife.

4.     Gently press the slices of pear into the topping so that the tops are still showing

5.     Bake in the oven until the topping is golden brown and springy, about 30-40 minutes

6.     Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing and cutting into the desired size.