In amongst my vast collection of cookery books, mostly Italian or baking, I do have a couple of lovely French ones and the book above just happens to be one of them. Its full of gorgeous recipes, beautifully written and the recipe below I thought was just perfect as we are coming into Summer, especially so, as we have just brought our tomato plants for the green house and are hoping for a glut of toms this year, fingers crossed! Funny thing is, even though I found this in a French cookery book, I felt that the ingredients made it more an Italian dish than French, but hey, I am biased!

This recipe just screams summer and being able to serve it hot or cold is fantastic, we had the tart hot with new potatoes and a crisp green salad, but it would also be great served cold for a buffet. Its a very impressive dish, so simple to put together and if served to a vegetarian they would be delighted. It is so full of flavour with the mascarpone & parmesan on the base, the tomatoes cooked to a gorgeous sweet almost caramelization and not one member of my Family said “where’s the meat”, it was filling and satisfying all on its own. Delicious and I hope to make it loads this summer with my own toms!

You could vary the cheese’s, try goat’s cheese, maybe even feta, also if I was using feta I would use fresh oregano instead of basil, I am pretty sure they would all work just as well.

Buon appetito.

Serves 6

350g puff pastry
1.5kg tomatoes, all roughly the same size
150g mascarpone cheese
50g Parmesan, finely grated
1 big bunch of fresh basil, leaves picked from the stalks & sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 200c/ 400f/ Gas 6.

Roll the puff pastry to a circle, slightly larger than 12 niches in diameter. I cut around a serving plate that I have which was just the perfect size. Put the pastry circle onto a tray and let rest in the fridge for 20 minutes or so while you prepare the tomatoes.

Remove the cores from the tomatoes (I must admit to being lazy here and pressed for time, I didn’t bother doing this and it turned out fine) and slice them about 5mm thick. Keep all the slices together and put the ends to one side.

Mix the mascarpone cheese with the Parmesan and basil and season well. Spread the mixture across the centre of the pastry circle, leaving about a 10cm gap at the edges. Layer the sliced tomatoes around the outside of the cheese, making a full circle. Continue towards the centre in ever-decreasing circles, overlapping the earlier circle each time. Tuck the tomato ends under each layer to prevent them caving in, then continue towards the centre (Hubby did this part and left the tomato ends out, again, it appeared to work fine without them). Put the last slice right in the middle and drizzle with olive oil.

Bake the tart in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, then turn the oven down to 150C/ 300F/ Gas 2 and bake for a further 45 minutes. I know it seems a very long time, but trust me it works and smells amazing as it cooks. When cooked there should be almost no liquid left in the tomatoes, and the pastry base will be crisp.