Goat's Cheese Soufflé Tart

This is the second time I've written about this recipe, for a Goat's Cheese Soufflé Tart, which is given extra flavour with a layer of onion chutney in the base, but the first was several years ago, so it was definitely time revisit the recipe!

I had a lot of cheese left after a meal with friends, including a large piece of soft goat's cheese, which wasn't going to keep for long. I was in two minds as to which kind of tart to make - this recipe or a more conventional leek and goat's cheese quiche with an egg and cream custard filling. In the end, I decided to make this soufflé-style tart again, as it was such a success the first time.

It's a little more fiddly to make than a traditional quiche, but from my previous experience, more likely to be successful, as the semi-solid, meringue-like, soufflé filling prevents any possibility of a soggy pastry bottom when the tart is cooked. I made my own pastry from 200g plain flour, 100g butter, 25g grated parmesan cheese plus water to mix, and used it to line a 22cm (9") deep fluted flan tin, which was then baked blind. I then followed the recipe closely for the soufflé filling, except for using finely chopped rosemary instead of thyme.

Once again, this was a resounding success! The onion chutney I had chosen was flavoured with a little chilli, nigella seeds and cumin, so added an extra piquancy to the layer between the pastry and goat's cheese filling. The souffléed filling was moist and creamy - completely different to the custard filling of a conventional quiche - and the pastry was light and crisp. The goat's cheese which was crumbled over the surface of the tart didn't brown much during cooking, so the tart looked pale and interesting rather than well-cooked, but this didn't affect the flavour. My goat's cheese was quite strongly flavoured and this came through well in the tart.

Goat's Cheese, Apricot and Walnut Savoury Cake

Now that sugar has been recognised as a bigger threat to health than saturated fats, I'm wondering what implications this will have on the recent surge in home baking. Will we all switch to savoury baking? Make bread, quiches and meat pasties instead of sugar-heavy brownies and cookies? I doubt that sweet baking will be abandoned entirely though - at least with home baking, as with all types of cooking, it's easier to control the amount of sugar that you add. Perhaps the way forward is to re-run our favourite recipes and see how much the sugar can be reduced without spoiling the finished product.

Something I like once in a while are savoury cakes, although they will never replace sweet cakes entirely. There are times when a slice of savoury cake goes down well - early evening, with a glass of wine or with a lunchtime salad, but what you need with your mid-morning cup of tea or evening coffee is normal sweet cake.

I chose this versatile recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (second recipe down), and following his suggestions, changed the raisins and hazelnuts for dried apricots and walnuts, as that was what I had in stock. I also used parmesan instead of hard goat's cheese.

This was a pleasant savoury cake, but I think I would have preferred it to be totally savoury. The dried fruit in this recipe was sweet enough to overwhelm the savoury elements, even the parmesan cheese, resulting in something which didn't fall satisfactorily into either the sweet or savoury camp. In this respect, the other two recipes on the link look more interesting - the ham and olive one in particular, although another recent TV programme has warned of the dangers of processed meats!

Double Cheese and Onion Soufflé Tart

This soufflé tart filling was a revelation! Good-bye soggy bottoms, farewell rubbery egg custard! I know that it is possible to make perfect pastry, blind bake to the exact point needed, get the custard into the case without spilling any, not have any cracks in the pastry for the custard to leak through, get the dish into the oven without any custard overflowing and get the exact set needed for the filling to be creamy rather than rubbery (and not soak into the pastry to give the dreaded soggy bottom) - but how often do they all come together to produce the perfect quiche?

I found the recipe on the Good Food website, and even though I've never made a soufflé, I found the idea of a soufflé filling for a savoury tart quite intriguing. In practice it was even better than I imagined - because the filling was quite solid (like a stiff meringue mix rather than cream), there was no liquid to soak into the pastry, or find the smallest crack to leak through. The pastry case could be filled to the brim without fear of overflow and the filling baked to a light springy texture, rather like a good baked cheesecake. The pastry case also released off the base  of the tin like a dream - something that has never happened when I make a quiche - and it stayed crisp for the three days it took to finish eating the tart.

Although I followed the recipe for the filling exactly, I made my own shortcrust cheese pastry, using 250g SR flour, 125g butter, 50g parmesan cheese and a little cold water. I used the pastry to line a deep 22cm loose-bottomed flan tin, and baked blind following the times and temperature in the recipe. The filling rose above the pastry during baking, and here was the only problem I encountered during making this tart - it was difficult to judge the end point of cooking. To be sure the soufflé was properly cooked, I turned off the oven after the time stated and left the tart in the cooling oven. This worked very well - the filling was cooked all the way through but still moist and creamy in texture. Once cooled, like all soufflés, it fell back to it's original level, but thankfully didn't sink in the middle, which was what I was fearing if it was undercooked.

The flavours in this quiche all worked well together - the sweet yet piquant caramelised onion chutney offset the richness of the soufflé filling, and the crisp pastry was a good contrast to the soft filling. I had picked a mild goat cheese, yet it was still evident that it was goat cheese being used - the flavour wasn't overwhelmed by any of the other ingredients. I'm not sure if this method could be adapted to make tarts with more solid pieces in the filling, such as bacon or vegetables, but  for a straightforward cheese tart this is so much better than a traditional quiche, and not that much more complicated to make.

The tart case only used 2/3 of the pastry, so there was plenty remaining to make some pesto pinwheels with the leftovers - the pastry was rolled to a rectangle, spread with a couple of tablespoons of pesto, rolled up like a swiss roll, chilled, then cut into 2cm slices and baked alongside the pastry case at 200C for about 20 minutes. (See the photo above.)

I'm sending this tart to Tea Time Treats (rules here), a baking challenge hosted jointly by Lavender and Lovage and The Hedge Combers. This month, Karen at Lavender and Lovage has asked us to produce something suitable for a picnic tea, and this tart certainly fits the bill - it would be easy to transport while still in the baking tin, and once cut is sturdy enough to be eaten by hand. It is also very tasty when eaten cold.

Savoury Goat Cheese and Chocolate Canapés - We Should Cocoa

This month's We Should Cocoa challenge has been just that - a real challenge, requiring several days of thought. Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog, who is a joint host with Chele from Chocolate Teapot, asked us to make something savoury and vegetarian for the February challenge - and chose the month with the fewest days to give us the hardest challenge, too! For those still unfamiliar with We Should Cocoa, each month we are asked to make something containing chocolate using the special nominated ingredient or method. The full rules can be found here on Choclette's blog.

My only previous experience of using chocolate in savoury cooking has been to add a few squares of dark chocolate to a chilli con carne. Although I could have taken the easy way out and done the same with a vegetarian chilli, I wanted to get into the spirit of the challenge and to make something original, which fitted the main theme of this blog - baking.

I decided to use chocolate pastry, and after a lot of thought, was convinced that nothing large scale was going to work here - small is beautiful, especially if the flavours don't quite work, which is always a worry when breaking new ground. Something which could go on a canapé tray and be eaten in one mouthful was the way to go - all the flavours at once, and no need to eat any more if it didn't suit your taste!

The first task was to think of savoury flavours which went well together, and also which might work with chocolate. Beetroot was an obvious choice as it is quite a sweet vegetable and is often used with chocolate in cakes and brownies. Goat cheese and beetroot are a good savoury pairing, and so is beetroot and horseradish. Right up until the moment I started to mix the filling, I intended to use goat cheese, beetroot and horseradish together but at the last moment I remembered a bar of chocolate containing pink peppercorns which we ate recently, and how deliciously spicy it was. The crunch of the pepper gave an extra textural contrast too. Out went the horseradish and in came a few coarsely crushed pink peppercorns.

There isn't really a recipe for what I did - but here's an outline of how these Goat Cheese and Chocolate Canapés were put together.

The pastry was standard shortcrust, made with plain flour and butter containing sea-salt crystals. I added 1 tablespoon of cocoa to 100g flour and 50g butter, and a few grindings of black pepper to make the pastry really savoury. I don't have any mini-tart moulds, but I do have some speciality Czech moulds, designed for sweet making. They look like little spoons, so I cut out circles of pastry, fitted each circle between two greased moulds, to prevent the pastry rising when cooked, and trimmed the pastry to the shape of the mould. These were then baked at 200C for 15 minutes. Luckily the moulds slipped away from the pastry quite easily.

The filling was an equal quantity of soft goat cheese and full fat cream cheese (about 30g of each for the 8 canapés I made), mixed with a half-teaspoon of coarsely crushed pink peppercorns. A small ball of this mixture was put into each pastry spoon - I think it would look very attractive if it was piped in, but I wasn't working with large enough quantities. The cheese was topped with a cube of cooked beetroot, a tiny parsley leaf and a grating of 100% cacao (Willie's Peruvian Black).

To be honest, the chocolate wasn't a predominant flavour, but I'm not sure the canapé would have been very pleasant if it had tasted strongly of chocolate. All the flavours blended together really well, with the spiciness of the peppercorns leaving the strongest impression after the mouthful was chewed and swallowed. The sweetness of the beetroot was also a major taste factor, although it didn't hide the fact that this was a savoury morsel.

This was an interesting challenge, but I don't think savoury chocolate recipes will feature regularly on my baking itinerary, unless someone else taking part comes up with something irresistible. I'm really looking forward to seeing the round-up for this challenge! Karen at Lavender and Lovage also used goat cheese and beetroot in her entry, and although I had already made my decision to use them, it was good to have it confirmed that these two ingredients would work well with chocolate!