Bourke Street Bakery Goat’s Cheese & Leek Tart Recipe

Bourke Street Bakery’s Paul Allam and David McGuinness bring their Surry Hills bakery classic to the high tea table, a savoury tart of soft goat’s cheese, sweet sautéed leek and thyme in impossibly good shortcrust.

No high tea spread is complete without something savoury enough to make you forget, briefly, that a scone is waiting. The Goat’s Cheese & Leek Tart from Bourke Street Bakery makes that case rather persuasively. Paul Allam and David McGuinness, the pair behind Sydney’s original artisan bakery, have spent over two decades perfecting the kind of rustic, unfussy baking that quietly outshines anything more elaborate.

This is a recipe to make for your high tea at home, when you want the savoury course to hold its own against whatever cake follows. Serve just warm, on your best tea ware.

Images and text from Bourke Street Bakery by Paul Allam and David McGuinness, photography by Alan Benson. Murdoch Books RRP $49.99.

Ingredients

• 1 quantity savoury shortcrust pastry (see page 150–1)
• 35 g (11⁄4 oz) butter
• 1 large leek (about 200 g/7 oz), white part only, washed and finely sliced
• 80 ml (21⁄2 fl oz/1⁄3 cup) white wine
• 300 ml (101⁄2 fl oz) pouring (whipping) cream (35% fat)
• 300 g (101⁄2 oz) soft goat’s cheese
• 4 eggs
• 3 thyme sprigs, leaves picked
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F/Gas 7). Roll out the savoury pastry following the instructions on pages 150–1 and use it to line the base and sides of eight 10 cm (4 inch) fluted, loose-based tart tins. Place in the refrigerator.
2. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat and sauté the leek for about 5 minutes, or until softened. Add the wine, swish it around, and allow it to evaporate completely. Remove from the heat and set aside.
3. Heat the cream in a saucepan over medium heat and crumble the goat’s cheese into it, stirring continuously until the cheese has completely dissolved and the cream thickens. Remove from the heat and set aside.
4. Put the eggs in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and mix for about 3 minutes on high speed, or until light and fluffy. Add the cream mixture, thyme, salt and pepper, and continue mixing on low speed for about 30 seconds to combine.
5. Put the pastry shells on a baking tray lined with baking paper and scatter the cooled leeks into the shells. Pour over the cream mixture to fill each tart.
6. Slide the tray onto the middle shelf of the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F/Gas 4) and bake for 30–35 minutes, or until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little before serving.

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Bourke Street Bakery team