Buttery Tomato Tart

This intensely flavoured tomato filling contains a scandalous amount of butter, but it’s worth every calorie. You can use any creamy soft white cheese, but avoid pungent goat’s milk cheeses. Steer clear of rocket too, because its aggressive pepperiness will overwhelm the star ingredient.

Buttery Tomato Tart: an easy recipe, and no soggy bottom. Photograph
by Michael Le Grange, courtesy of Random House Struik.  

This easy recipe comes from my book Scrumptious: Food for Family & Friends, and it's one I make often when cherry tomatoes are in high season, as they are now in South Africa.

I have a few vines growing in my garden, but I have to say they are not a patch on the glorious sweet tomatoes spilling out of supermarket shelves.  I've tried growing many different varieties of miniature tomatoes over the years, under the most organic of circumstances, but every summer I'm disappointed by my crop because their skins are so leathery. Sure, they have a wonderful and mysterious grassy taste that is quite absent in supermarket tomatoes, but they're really not suitable for a dish like this because I'd have to peel every one of them. And who has time for peeling cherry tomatoes?

For this recipe, in order to prevent soggy-bottom syndrome, I pre-bake the pastry cases and pile in the filling  just before I serve them.  You can prepare both the filling and the pastry cases in advance - see my Cook's Notes at the end of this page.

Please don't skimp on the butter or cream in this recipe. They are the best friends of tomatoes.

Buttery Tomato Tart 

8 Tbsp (120 ml/120 g) butter
2 tsp (10 ml) olive oil
1 kg ripe, sweet cherry tomatoes
2 thumb-length sprigs fresh rosemary
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 large clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped or grated
a pinch of chilli flakes (optional)
salt and milled black pepper
6 Tbsp (90 ml) fresh cream
2 rolls ready-rolled puff pastry, thawed
a beaten egg, for brushing

For the topping: 

150 g mild, creamy white cheese, such as feta, ricotta or proper mozzarella
a handful of fresh baby herb leaves: oregano, marjoram or basil

Heat the butter and oil in a large pan and add the whole tomatoes and herb sprigs. Cook, tossing often, over a high heat, for 5-7 minutes, or until the tomatoes have softened. Using a potato masher, lightly crush the tomatoes to release their juices.

Add the garlic and chilli flakes and season with salt and pepper. Turn up the heat and cook at a vigorous bubble for 5 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened and reduced slightly. Stir in the cream and bubble for another few minutes. Discard the herb sprigs and keep warm.

Set the oven to 180 °C and heat two baking sheets. Unroll each puff pastry cylinder and roll out lightly to increase its size by about 2 cm on all sides.  Using a sharp knife, trim a 1-cm-wide strip off each edge. Brush the pastry with beaten egg and prick all over with a fork. Place the strips of pastry around the edges of the rectangle to form a raised border. Mark a chevron pattern on the border, using a knife. Brush the borders with egg.

Cut out two rectangles of foil exactly the same size as the base (measure by placing the foil over the pastry and running your thumbnail around the inside edge of the border). Place the foil on top of the pastry. Lift the pastry sheets, on their paper, and place them on the hot baking sheets (you may need another pair of hands for this). Bake for 10 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for a further 10–15 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and crisp. Don’t worry if the middle of the pastry puffs up; it will soon subside.

Peel off the foil and place the pastry bases on wire racks so the bottoms remain crisp. Just before you serve the tarts, spread the warm tomato filling over the bases. Scatter with nuggets of cheese and a sprinkling of baby herb leaves. Slice into squares and serve immediately.

Serves 8 as a snack.

Cook’s Notes

• The pastry bases can be prepared, ready for cooking, up to 8 hours in advance and kept covered in the fridge. 
• Once baked and cooled, the pastry bases will remain crisp for at least two hours at room temperature, depending on the humidity in your kitchen.
• Bring the pastry up to room temperature before it goes into the oven. 
• You can prepare the tomato sauce up to 24 hours in advance and warm it gently before spreading it over the pastry.

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Nectarine Frangipane Tart, with my tips for making feather-light pastry

Every shelf in my local supermarket is brimming with South African summer fruits, and this week the loveliest of them all are plump nectarines in glorious sunset colours. They're delicious eaten raw, but equally good cooked in a rustic, fruity tart filled with a lightly brandied frangipane.

I get hot under the collar when someone nicks a recipe off this site without asking (and you won't believe how often this happens) so I feel a bit guilty about sharing a brilliant and reliable recipe that I personally nicked off someone else 25 years ago.

When I say 'nicked', I mean that I read it in a cook book, tried it, and liked it so much that I typed out the recipe (using an actual typewriter, as we did in those days) and stuck it in my recipe file. I must have made this thirty or forty times over the past two decades, using apples, pears, apricots and plums, and it comes close to what I regard as a perfect recipe. I'm sorry now that I didn't make a note of whose recipe it was, because I would like to shake that person firmly by the hand. (Nowadays, when I write down a recipe, I always make a note of whose recipe it is, and what book it came from.)

In its original form, this was a recipe for (and I recorded at least this part of the recipe) a Normandy Apple Tart. This is a classic French recipe using a crisp pâte brisée (shortcrust pastry), a frangipane of almonds and eggs, and very thinly sliced apples.

Although at first glance this recipe may seem technically demanding - as does any recipe that calls for home-made pastry - it's actually very easy to make, provided that you follow the instructions to the letter.

Before I give you the recipe, here are my top tips and tricks for making light, short, good-looking pastry.

Pastry tips and tricks

1. Use a food processor fitted with a metal blade, if you have one, and forget all this nonsense about using your fingertips. Food-processor pastry produces excellent results because it doesn't have a chance to heat up, is not touched by warm fingers, and is mixed in a jiffy. But don't over-process the pastry.

2. Use very cold butter. A good tip is to place your block of butter in the freezer for an hour or so before you make your pastry, and then grate it onto a pre-chilled plate.

3. Add just enough iced water to bring the mixture together into a crumbly ball, and let the ball turn round no more than six times in the food processor.

4. Don't overwork your pastry. Don't knead it, bash it, pound it or stretch it. The very most you should handle it is to push it together with your fingertips and then pat it out into a little circle. Dip your fingertips in iced water first.

5. Do rest your pastry, covered, for at least half an hour in the fridge.

6. Roll (and you are going to love me for this tip, which comes from Rachel Allen) your pastry out between two sheets of clingfilm. If the clingfilm sheets are too narrow, join several pieces together

7. Use light but firm rolling motions, in all directions. What you want is a smooth, even sheet about 3mm deep, and about 5 cm larger than the size of the tart pan.

8. Use a marble-sized ball of dough to press the pastry well into the corners.

9. Don't trim the edges, but allow them to drape over the sides of the pan; this prevents the pastry from shrinking at the edges. Trim the excess away with a knife when you've finished baking the tart.

10. Prick the base all over, using a fork, in about 40 places, before baking blind.

11. When baking blind, line the pastry with a sheet of proper baking paper (not foil or wax paper) and large lentils or ceramic baking beads. Avoid rice, as it inevitably spills and embeds itself in the pastry.

12. If you're adding a very wet filling (such as soggy apples) brush the bottom of the pastry with beaten egg before you blind-bake it.

13. Watch the tart like a hawk while it is cooking. If the edges are browning too quickly, cover them with narrow strips of foil.

Nectarine Frangipane Tart

For the pastry:
200 g flour
200 g cold butter
a pinch of salt
1 large egg yolk
2-3 T (30-45 ml) iced water

For the filling:
100 g softened butter
100 g caster sugar
1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk
2 tsp (10 ml) brandy
2 T (30 ml) flour
100 g ground almonds
½ tsp (2.5 ml) almond extract or essence
6 just-ripe nectarines, stoned and sliced

To finish:
caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180° C. First make the pastry. Put the flour, butter and salt into a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, then add the egg yolk. With the motor running, add the cold water in tiny trickles, until until the pastry just holds together. Remove from the processor, press together into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge to rest for half an hour.

Grease an 22 cm non-stick flan or pie pan. Place a long piece of cling film on your countertop. Put the cold pastry ball on top, and cover with another piece of clingfilm. Using a rolling pin, roll out the pastry into a rough circle about 5 cm bigger than your pan, and about 2-3 mm thick.

Peel off the top layer of cling film, wrap the pastry over your rolling pin, and centre it, pastry-side down, on the pie dish. Gently peel away the clingfilm and, using your fingertips and a ball of left-over pastry, lightly press the pastry into the dish. Allow the edges to drape over the sides of the dish.

Prick the base all over with a fork, cover with a piece of greaseproof paper and fill with lentils or baking beans. Bake blind for about 15 minutes, then remove the paper and beans and bake for a further 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Using a whisk or electric beater, cream together the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Combine the egg and egg yolk in a small bowl, and then add the egg, a little at a time, to the butter mixture. Add the brandy, flour, almonds and almond extract and stir well to combine.

Tip the frangipane into the cooled pastry case and smooth the top with a spatula. Arrange the nectarine slices in overlapping rows or circles on the filling, pressing them down slightly. Bake at 180° C for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, sprinkle lightly with caster sugar, and bake for another 10 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown and the filling cooked through. Allow the tart to cool a little, then trim away the excess pastry with a knife.

Serve at room temperature, with whipped cream or vanilla icecream.

Makes one  22 cm tart. Print Friendly

Audrey's Almond Tart

Audrey Rayner, champion baker, on her wedding day.

My late mother-in-law Audrey Rayner (née Morgan) was a wonderful cook, entirely self-taught, with a particular talent for pastry and cake making. She had a lightness of touch, a fine palate and an innate understanding of good ingredients.

She was also an entirely English cook, producing the sort of fine traditional food that makes grown men weep: the tartest fruit pies, flans and crumbles, the most succulent roasts, the tastiest gravies, the lightest biccies and steamed puddings.

Here is her recipe for Almond Tart, a simple but sublime formula consisting of a light shortcrust pastry, a spreading of excellent home-made raspberry jam and a topping of almond frangipane.

You will notice that this recipe calls for Stork  (a South African margarine or vegetable shortening designed for baking). Audrey wasn't a margarine eater - the very idea of putting it on toast would have appalled her - but she always insisted that vegetable shortening made the lightest and best pastry. Use butter if you like, but Stork is best.

I hesitate to tamper with this recipe, but I have two things to add to it.  One, roll your pastry out between sheets of cling film (and I bless Rachel Allen for this excellent tip), which makes it so easy to handle.

I wanted to show you the whole tart, but my family polished
off most of it before it had even had a chance to cool.

Two: Although Audrey never baked this pastry case blind, you might want to do so if you want a crisp dry bottom on your pastry.

Audrey's Almond Tart

For the pastry:

250 g cake flour
150 g cold Stork margarine, or similar vegetable shortening, or butter, cut into small cubes
about 100 ml ice-cold water (see recipe, below)

For the filling:

100 g soft butter
100 g caster sugar
1 large free-range egg
2 Tbsp (30 ml) self-raising flour
70 g ground almonds
5 ml (1 tsp) natural almond extract, or almond essence
5 Tbsp (75 ml) raspberry jam, slightly warmed

Heat the oven to 190° C. 

First make the pastry. Put the flour and the margarine into a bowl, and rub together with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the cold water, bit by bit, until the pastry just holds together. Knead lightly with your fingertips and press into a ball. (You can do this quickly in a food processor fitted with a metal blade: use the pulse button to process the flour and margarine, and add the cold water in splashes, through the tube of the jug, until the pastry comes together and forms a mass. Don't over-process the dough).

Wrap the pastry in clingfilm and put it in the fridge while you make the filling.

Using a whisk or electric whisk, cream together the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Whisk in the egg, self-raising flour, almonds and almond essence. Set aside.

Now roll out your pastry. Place a long piece of cling film on a marble slab, or your counter top. Put the cold pastry ball on top, and cover with another piece of clingfilm. Using a rolling pin, roll out the pastry into a rough circle about 20 cm in diameter, and about 2 mm thick.

Grease an 18-cm-diameter flan or pie dish.

Peel off the top layer of cling film. Now flip the pastry over and drape it over the flan dish, without peeling off the upper layer of cling film. Gently ease the pastry into the dish, getting well into the corners, and letting its edges drape over the rim.  When the pastry is sitting comfortably in the dish,  run a rolling pin firmly over the rim to slice away any overhang.   Peel off the top layer of clingfilm and pull away the excess overhanging pastry.

Prick the base of the pastry all over with a fork, and press down on it a circle of baking paper or tin foil cut to about the same size.  Fill the paper with 2 cups of rice or dried beans, and bake blind at 190 °C for 15 minutes, or until the outer rim feels somewhat dry when you tap it with a finger.  Gently remove the paper with the rice, and return the dish it to the oven - turned down to 180 °C - for a further 10-15 minutes, or until the base of the pastry is a light golden colour, and dry to the touch.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Spread the raspberry jam all over the bottom of the pastry case. Place big blobs of the almond filling on top of the jam, and smooth the surface with a spatula, making sure to bring the mixture right up to the edges of the pastry case and form a tight seal, to prevent the jam from bubbling up.

Roll the remaining scraps of pastry into a long rectangle (again, between sheets of cling film) and then cut into thin strips. Put the strips in a criss-cross or lattice fashion across the top of the tart (you can twist each strip first, if you like.)

Bake at 190° C for 20-25 minutes, or until the filling is golden and puffed up. Delicious warm with cream or vanilla ice cream.

Makes one 18-cm tart.


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