An academic semester barely leaves me any time to do things that I like out of leisure and when summer came knocking, I jumped at the opportunity to scour for recipes and make full use of my oven. I made my first savoury tart a few days ago! A squash-and-spinach gruyere tart: the recipe called for a butternut squash but I couldn't find that at my local grocer and hence substituted it with a Japanese summer pumpkin. I relished in the amount of cheese in the recipe, not just gruyere but cheddar as well but after baking the tart, I thought it would've been better if they included more cheese because the sweetness of pumpkin overpowered the cheese.
I've modified the recipe as follows:
Tart Crust
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) cold butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cold water
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) cold butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cold water
Japanese Pumpkin & Spinach Filling
3 eggs
1 1/4 cups whipping/heavy cream
2 ounces grated Cheddar cheese
Pinch of ground mixed spice
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 1/2 to 2 lb Japanses pumpkin, peeled and roasted (bake at 180 degrees C) for 20-30 minutes
8 ounces grated Gruyere cheese
1 lb frozen spinach, thawed
3 eggs
1 1/4 cups whipping/heavy cream
2 ounces grated Cheddar cheese
Pinch of ground mixed spice
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 1/2 to 2 lb Japanses pumpkin, peeled and roasted (bake at 180 degrees C) for 20-30 minutes
8 ounces grated Gruyere cheese
1 lb frozen spinach, thawed
To make the crust, process together the flours, butter, and salt in a food processor until mixture resembles coarse sand. Alternatively, you can cut the butter into the flour using a pastry blender or your hands. Add just enough cold water to bring dough together into a ball (about 2-4 tablespoons). Remember not to put too much water because when you bake the tart, the evaporation of the water will shrink the crust.
Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1/2 hour to 1 hour.
Brush the tart pan with butter (important to prevent cracked tart base when you remove it from the pan!). When the dough is soft, roll out to fit tart pan and chill for an additional 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
Prick the bottom of the tart crust with a fork a few dozen times to prevent crust from rising and bake for 11-12 minutes. Keep oven running.
Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, heavy cream, Cheddar cheese, and mixed spice. Add salt and pepper, to taste. Set aside. Cut roasted pumpkin into 1/4-inch slices. Press all excess moisture out of spinach leaves (remember to wash the spinach before freezing) and cut them into shorter pieces.
In the baked tart shell, sprinkle 1/2 of the grated Gruyere cheese and 3/4 of the spinach onto the bottom. Layer in the pumpkin slices and the rest of the Gruyere cheese. Sprinkle the remaining spinach for garnish. Pour cream filling evenly over the top of the tart. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until lightly browned. Allow tart to rest for 10 minutes before cutting in it for the custard to fully set.
A couple of takeaways from this bake would definitely be to always remember to brush the tart pan with butter (if it was non-stick) because when I removed it from the pan, the sides (my favourite part!) were stuck. Also, I left the dough in the refrigerator overnight and had trouble rolling it out because it was so hard. I think refrigerating it for 30 min to an hour would have been sufficient. If I had another shot at baking this tart again, I would've made sure the dough I rolled out was thinner so the crust wasn't that thick. My mom didn't like the spinach but I thought the vegetable was pretty significant in this summer tart. I would've cut the spinach into shorter pieces because everyone had trouble pulling out long pieces of spinach with their mouths (an observation).
I received a lot of positive feedback on my first savoury tart (yay!) and I thought this tart crust was really really good. It wasn't crumbly or too hard after baking. It can definitely be modified to make a chocolate tart or some sort (hint for next tart bake maybe?).
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