A handful of flaked almonds (for extra flavour, toast them in a dry pan)
Icing sugar, for dusting
Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C/gas 6. Grease a roughly 18cm x 2cm tart ring. Cut a strip of greaseproof paper to stick to the inside. Place the tart ring on a lined baking tray.
Drain the pears and slice in half if large. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar, then add the ground almonds, cornflour, vanilla and egg. Mix well then spoon into the tin, spreading evenly.
Arrange the pears evenly around the outside of the tart, resting them on top of the almond sponge mixture and with the tip of each half meeting in the middle.
My mother was tiny – less than 5ft tall – but she never let her height get in the way of a good meal.
I have so many memories of her leaping across her kitchen counters as she reached for a certain spice at the back of a cupboard.
She was still climbing for food in her nineties. When she was 94 I found her up a cherry tree, at the top of a ladder, picking the fruit.
But that was Maman Blanc. Unstoppable. My sons used to call her Mother Teresa on speed.
Our mothers often shape our lives and are always with us, even when they are not. My mother lived her whole life in Franche-Comté, the region of France where I was born.