Tomato and Goats Cheese Tart

Ingredients

• 1 sheet of all-butter puff pastry
• 400 g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 tbsp dijon mustard
• 150 g soft goats cheese
• leaves from a few sprigs of thyme
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tbsp honey, to finish

Method

1. Score a border

   Unroll the pastry onto its paper on a baking tray and score a 2 cm border, cutting halfway through only. The scored frame rises; the middle stays flat and holds the filling.

2. Salt the tomatoes

   Toss the halved tomatoes with the oil and a good pinch of salt and leave them cut-side down on kitchen paper for ten minutes. Tomato juice is what turns the base of a tart to pulp.

   10 min

3. Layer the filling

   Spread the mustard thinly inside the border, dot over the goats cheese, then arrange the tomatoes cut-side up with the thyme. Mustard under the cheese is a barrier as much as a flavour — it slows the moisture reaching the pastry.

4. Glaze and bake

   Brush the border with beaten egg, keeping it off the cut edge, and bake at 200°C until the pastry is deep gold and crisp underneath. Egg dripping down the cut side glues the layers shut and stops them rising.

   25 min

5. Finish

   Trickle honey over while hot and eat warm rather than straight from the oven, when the tomatoes are still scalding.