In this savory Thanksgiving side dish, yellow cherry tomatoes find a tasty pairing with Gouda, which is the perfect filling for these hearty, whole-wheat tart shells. Adding these tartlets to your Thanksgiving menu is a great way to bring something new to a table filled with classic flavors. And these are so delicious that we suspect they’ll be a Thanksgiving tradition for years to come.
Thanksgiving Appetizer: Tomato and Gouda Tartlets
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 sticks cold butter
- 11⁄4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
- Pinch of salt
- Ice water
- 3 cups shredded Gouda
- 2 cup half and half
- 4 eggs
- 3 cups yellow cherry tomatoes, halved (red cherry tomatoes are fine if you can’t find yellow)
- 1/8 teaspoon fresh pepper
- 6 Thyme sprigs for garnish
Instructions
- In a large bowl, sift together the flour and salt.
- Cut the butter into small cubes and add to the flour and salt mixture.
- Using your fingers, combine the butter and flour until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs, with a few buttery lumps remaining.
- Make a well in the center of the mixture and using your fingertips, sprinkle in 2 tablespoons of the ice water. Combine until the mixture begins to form a dough, adding an additional 1 tablespoon of water at a time if necessary.
- Form the dough into a ball.
- At this point, you have two options. You can either roll out your ball of dough on a clean, floured countertop or you can use your hands to fill the tart pans. If you choose to roll out the dough, once rolled, it should be large enough to overlap the edges of your tart pan. Place it inside the pan and work it up the edges, ensuring that you press it into all of the grooves in the pan. Once you have it smoothed out, trim the edges.I typically skip the rolling step and just work the dough directly into the tart pan.
- Prick the bottom a few times with a fork.
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- Meanwhile, for the filling: add the eggs, half and half and pepper to a medium bowl and whisk together.
- Divide the Gouda evenly amongst the 6 tart shells.
- Pour the egg and cream mixture into the shell, leaving enough space to float the tomatoes.
- Place cherry tomato halves in each shell, cut side up.
- Bake the tarts until the filling is set and puffed up and they’ve turned golden brown, roughly 25 minutes.
- Allow tarts to cool for a few minutes, remove from tart pan and garnish with a sprig of thyme.