caramelised onion & feta tart

Recipe

❤ Caramelised Onion and Feta Tart

Recently I grabbed one whole hour of uninterrupted bliss... and I wasn’t asleep. Do you get to enjoy time like that very often? A massage you ask? No. Facial perhaps? No chance. It was an impromptu date with the Kim Evans book ‘Treats from Little & Friday’.  I completely lost myself in her story, vintage layout and special recipes. Her book drizzles mouth-watering charm on every page.  It’s no wonder this tart is still No. 1 in her Auckland bakeries. The addition of gruyere cheese and mustard powder to the pastry takes it well beyond expectations.  A modern tart based on the classic French favourite that’s perfect I reckon for the Easter long weekend.

Ingredients

Paprika & Gruyere Pastry

75 grams unsalted butter

1 ¼ cups plain flour

½ teaspoon paprika

½ teaspoon mustard powder

½ cup grated Gruyere Swiss Cheese (Australian or NZ brands are good)

salt and pepper

1 egg yolk

2 tablespoons iced water 

(enough pastry for one 28cm round tart or six 6cm tarts)

Tart filling

1 cup tasty cheese, grated

2 cups crumbled feta (or other crumbly cheese of your choice - blue cheese would work wonders too)

3 cups Caramelised Onions (below)

salt and freshly ground pepper

12 eggs  (note: in the shallower tart tin I used here 8 eggs were plenty)

⅓ cup cream 

Caramelised Onions  (makes 4 cups)

8 onions, thinly sliced

4 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

6 tablespoons of brown sugar

good dash of olive oil

Method + Top Tips

To make the pastry - rub butter and flour in a medium sized bowl until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  Combine the paprika, mustard powder, Gruyere and salt and pepper in another bowl. Mix the egg yolk and water to paprika cheese mix. 

Add this to the flour and lightly knead into a soft dough before covering in cling wrap to rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.  (freezes well if required or refrigerate for up to one week)

Grease tart tin/s lightly with butter. Roll out Paprika & Gruyere pastry to 3mm thick. Line base and sides of tart tin. Rest in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes.  Note: it's brilliant pastry - doesn’t need a long resting time, easy to work with, you don’t need to blind bake this one and it doesn’t shrink.

Preheat oven to moderate 180°C (350°F).

To make the filling - Sprinkle grated cheese, crumbled feta and Caramelised Onions in the tart base, spreading evenly.  Season with salt and pepper. 

Whisk eggs and cream together until combined and pour gently into pastry tin, leaving a 2mm gap from the rim top so tart won’t overflow or stick.

Bake for 35 minutes for small tarts or 50 minutes for whole large, just checking egg mixture is set in the centre by lightly touching it. Should be a lovely golden brown and very fragrant. Cool completely in the tin before serving.

To make the caramelised onions - coat a large saucepan with olive oil. Fry off your thinly sliced onions in balsamic vinegar and brown sugar at high heat, stirring as required while liquid is forming and then reducing. Lower heat to a simmer and stir as required until onions are caramelised dark brown and very soft 

The parallels between Kim’s early days in her 1st Auckland bakery and my former Palm Beach one are vivid. Staying true to your original vision is often the hardest challenge in life, don’t you think?

A great busy bakery quickly takes on its own life and form, harder and harder to shape. Despite the name, Kim’s bakery was never going to stay ‘little’ or open only on ‘Fridays’ with beautiful baking like that.  Check out her Pear Tarts too if you get a chance. A petite piece of perfection.

special light scones

Tale - The Preface

It's a tale of two ladies & two truths.

Today they demolished my Grandmother’s house.  Making way for a modern one to be built. Fortunately the land remains in our family. But it was one of the last standing original shacks in our beachside town. A sad day indeed, only made bearable by paying tribute to my Granny with a batch of her beloved special light scones and a hot cuppa.  With Lemon butter and freshly whipped Chantilly cream. Plenty of sifted icing sugar & vanilla added to the cream. 

Ingredients

450 grams self raising flour ❤ 30 grams icing sugar ❤ 2 heaped tablespoons butter at room temperature (80-90grams) ❤ 1 cup of buttermilk (approx. 250ml) OR 1 cup of full cream milk soured with a squeeze of lemon 

makes about 20 small or about 15 large scones

Method + Top Tips

Preheat oven to hot 220°C (425°F)

Organisation is everything when baking scones, when baking anything at all. But especially scones. You must work lightly and quickly so have everything on hand ready.  Grease a flat scone tray or any flat baking tray without sides. Get your pastry brush and scone cutter handy. Flour your bench or pastry sheet ready for kneading the scone dough. Get your extra milk ready in a cup for brushing tops. Do these steps now and you’ll be a dab hand Aussie country scone cook, serving them up and whoofing them down in 20 minutes. Scones are a simple staple in your baking classics to master and enjoy.

Sift the flour & icing sugar together three times, with a pinch of salt added. Lightly rub in butter with your fingertips. Make a well in centre & pour all the milk in at once & mix quickly with a knife. Mixture will come together & should be a moist dough. Turn out onto a floured board/bench-top and knead very lightly before pressing or rolling out. Make the dough about 3 cm/just over 1inch thick with your floured hand. Brush tops with milk & place in oven immediately. Bake for about 15 minutes or until lightly golden. Cool wrapped in towel on a wire tray. 

Buttermilk is excellent for mixing scones. Once upon a time scones were only made when milk was starting to sour and needed using up. But nowadays a squeeze of lemon juice or ½ teaspoon of bicarb soda to each cup of milk really does the trick. A beaten egg yolk into the milk with a pinch of sugar makes them even richer & very light.  Use just a scant cup of milk (e.g 230ml) if adding egg yolk to your mixture

Always mix scone dough with a knife & be super quick getting them into the oven. I mostly make generous sized ones (cafe habit), cutting them with an old crystal whisky glass, left on the kitchen shelf just for this purpose. Small ones are lovely too. Store bought scone cutters come in lots of sizes. If you slightly twist, rather than pushing straight down when cutting them you’ll find they rise even higher. Wrap your precious bundle inside the loveliest linen tea towel in your drawer as soon as they come out, resting on a wire tray. 

Last word (I promise!) on scones, you can add a little apple & cinnamon (the batch pictured bottom), ginger, sultanas or currants, even pumpkin to this recipe. 100g of grated mature cheddar to dry ingredients is yum too. Substitute the milk for water though if using cheese.  Most often I leave them plain Jane & serve with lemon butter or homemade jam - displayed on my Mum's best $25 garage sale silver (what a treasure!) with a cutting from the garden. 

Currumbin Beach 1925   Courtesy of Queensland State Library Archive

Why is it we turn to tradition in times of change? Comfort I guess, like the food itself. Am I admitting already in my 1st Posting that I am a comfort eater?! Yup. I believe we all find solace in good food.

My 1st ever cookbook was The Schauer Australian Cookery Book, published in 1909. Along with Miss Amy Schauer’s Fruit Preserving and Confectionary Book (1908).  My Grandma gave it to me 74 years later in 1983. I was fourteen at the time. Now I’ve gone and admitted my 2nd truth haven’t it. Well, Amy Schauer would have been 112. Plenty of her stories and inspiration to come. She really was in my mind Australia’s 1st lady of cuisine. Many Australian women from this era, particularly in Queensland, passed on a cherished copy of her cookery book to their daughters and granddaughters. Online shopping now ensures vintage copies still circulate to the highest bidder. And I hope a new edition will be released one day.

It is this iconic book and the passion of these two very special ladies that inspires me to blog my own adventures in food and travel. I hope by sharing with you my favourite recipes and stories you will feel inspired to recreate and rediscover the great sophistication in simplicity.

Right now is a very exciting time in Australian kitchens. Young Australians and foodies all around the world have never been more stimulated by Australia's dynamic multicultural cuisine. Australians culinary skills (whether homecook, farmer, baker or qualified chef) and our magnificent fresh produce command respect. We are, after all the dishes are done, the lucky country.