Goat's Cheese and Red Onion Tart

As 'Tart Week' approaches this evening on The Great British Bake Off (which I am extremely excited/apprehensive about - praying for no soggy bottoms!), it reminded me of the goat's cheese and balsamic onion tarts I made a few weeks ago. I was at the shops and saw some ready rolled shortcrust pastry which was reduced and thought I'd give it a go as I'd never made tarts before. I opted for goat's cheese and red onion tart as I know they're classic flavour combinations and the family needed to be fed! I have caramalised onions before so I googled a recipe just for some guidance and ended up on BBC Good Food. I'll post the link to the original recipe, but I altered it quite a bit and they ended up tasting incredible so feel free to try either! 

This is the original recipe: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5753/goats-cheese-and-red-onion-tarts

However, this is the way I decided to it... I didn't really measure anything out, so posting an exact recipe will be difficult but I'll try my best.

INGREDIENTS

500g block shortcrust pastry
2 red onions
balsamic vinegar
dark brown soft sugar
bunch thyme 
olive oil
salt and pepper
pack goats cheese

METHOD

1. Heat oven to 200C fan/180C gas. Line 6 tart tins or 1 large tin with pastry and prick bottoms. Line with parchment and baking beans and bake for 10 mins. Lift out parchment and bake for a further 5 mins. The pastry should be crisp, dried and cooked.

2. Meanwhile, slice the red onion. Heat some olive oil in a pan and fry the onion until they start to soften. Throw in a few lugs of balsamic vinegar, half the bunch of thyme and bubble. Add dark brown soft sugar and season to taste - for me this took away some of the sharpness of the balsamic vinegar and added a different dimension to the flavour of the onions. 

3. Place the onions in the tart case(s) and crumble some goats cheese on top. The reason I crumbled rather than actually slicing 6 round slices was because it was physically impossible to cut neat rounds! 

4. Bake until the goats cheese starts to brown and bubble - then enjoy! 


Okay, so I know it isn't the most pretty thing in the world - presentation isn't my strong point. Butttt, when I'm feeding my family it's the last thing I think about! Anyway, they enjoyed it so much that my mum actually treated me to some tartlet baking cases and the very next week I made some mini ones instead. I even made my own pastry! Here are the results...

These are actually a lot easier to make than you may think. Making my own pastry was stressful, as I didn't know what it was actually supposed to be like. However it came out crisp, short and how it was supposed to be so if I can do it, it can't be that hard! 

I've been quite experimental recently and the next post is going to be about my battle with macaroons!