Recipe by: Jason Roberts

The flakey pastry recipe was handed down to me by my mentor Damien Pignolet, who has been a colleague and good friend for many years. The recipe makes the most incredibly textured pastry I have ever eaten. Feel free to substitute a pre-prepared commercial brand for convenience, just remember to cook the pastry till it’s crisp, you’ll end up with a much better end result.

Serves 4

Ingredients

Damien’s Flakey Pastry

• 260 g plain flour
• 180 g chilled butter
• Pinch salt
• 50 ml water
• 1 egg white
• Zest of ½ a lemon (optional)
• Pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)

Filling

• 3 x 60 g eggs
• 450 ml cream
• Pinch white pepper
  Pinch nutmeg
  50 g firm goats cheese
  2 vine ripened tomatoes – oven dried (see note)

Method

• Sift the flour and salt into a clean bowl.
• Grate the butter over the flour. Using your hands lightly lift the flour through the butter separating all the little clusters, coating butter evenly.
• Pour on the water. Using the heel of your hand proceed by pushing the butter into the flour away from yourself.
• Pull flour and butter back and repeat till flour has absorbed the butter and you are left with dough.
• Wrap the dough tightly in GLAD plastic wrap and rest* in the refrigerator for an hour before using.
• Pre-heat oven to 170°C Roll out the pastry on a floured surface until it is 4 mm thick.
• Press into a round 23–27 cm tart tin and rest in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. Cover the pastry with a piece of Glad baking paper or lightly buttered GLAD aluminium foil and fill with blind baking weights, dried pulses or rice.
• Blind bake in the oven for approximately 20–25 minutes then remove GLAD foil and weights, return to oven for about 5 minutes to finish browning. Brush the hot pastry shell with lightly beaten egg white, to seal any possible cracks, dry in oven for a further 2 minutes.
• Place eggs, cream, white pepper and nutmeg into a medium sized bowl and beat lightly with a fork until well mixed but not aerated (no bubbles). Once all ingredients are mixed, set the bowl over a pot of lightly simmering water, mixing constantly for 2–3 minutes until mixture is lukewarm, but not hot.
• Carefully pour custard into the prepared tart shell, drop oven temperature to 125°C and bake for 30 minutes. Remove tart and place the goats cheese and tomato on top. Return to the oven for a further 5 minutes.
• When cooked, the custard filling should still have a slight wobble to it, but not be runny. Allow to cool before serving.

Note: To oven dry tomatoes, slice 5 mm thick and sprinkle with dried thyme leaves and black pepper and cook at 155°C for 2 hours.

* Resting is a process that allows the gluten in the flour to relax and minimise shrinking whilst cooking.