Nope, It Ain’t Pizza

It’s Gale Gand’s sweet tomato tart. And a fine thing it is, too. Happily I found some superior plum tomatoes at a local machine shop the other day. Yes I said a machine shop. This is Kentucky, friend. The guy happens to grow great produce. What?

As for any tart, you want to be very careful not to work the crust much. Unlike a lot of tart doughs, this one calls for egg and egg yolk in addition to butter. They give the finished crust a satisfying cakiness, but they also introduce dreaded moisture into the dough.

Why is that bad? Well because flour + water + agitation = developed gluten. And developed gluten is just the kind of stretchy, tough stuff you don’t want in a delicate, yielding tart crust. Thus when you add the eggs to your dough, only let the beater go around three or four times — just enough to form a rough dough, that’s it.

You’ll find the dough to be a little hard to work with: somewhat prone to cracking. Just use plenty of flour, roll gently and lightly press back together any cracks that appear. Above all take your time. I found the recipe produced about 20% more dough than I needed, which gave me enough to make a couple of tartlets for the neighbors. They gotta eat too.