Puff Pastry Tomato Tartlets

Flaky puff pastry tomato tartlets with homemade rough puff pastry, herbed cream cheese, and juicy tomatoes. Sprinkled with parmesan cheese and fresh thyme.

This recipe makes individual tartlets though you could easily make one large puff pastry tomato tart too! It makes the most delicious appetizer or light lunch. It uses a Rough Puff Pastry which is super tasty and easy to make!

You can use a store-bought sheet of puff pastry for an extra easy recipe, but homemade rough puff pastry tastes even better!

Homemade puff pastry

This tart recipe uses a quick homemade butter puff pastry. It tastes delicious, with a light as air texture thanks to the copious amounts of butter in the dough. The dough is rolled and folded multiple times which creates layers. As it is baked, the water in the butter evaporates and pushes these layers up.

The trick to keeping it flaky is to have the butter cold. That way the heat of the oven can quickly evaporate the water. Ensure you don’t let the butter melt.

This recipe uses a rough puff pastry dough, where chunks of butter are mixed into the dough and rolled out into many layers. There’s a little resting time, but not as much as traditional or inverse puff pastry. It can be made and ready to use within 3 hours!

The puff pastry in this recipe is a smaller version of this rough puff pastry. It makes just enough for these puff pastry tomato tartlets. If you follow the full puff pastry recipe, you can make a more significant amount that can be frozen for future recipes.

The filling

The filling for the tarts is herby cream cheese, with room temperature cheese, fresh garlic, thyme, and a little salt and black pepper.

Top with halved cherry tomatoes. The flavorful cheese mixture matches perfectly with ripe tomatoes.

You can also mix a little basil pesto with the cream cheese to make it flavorful!

You can use halved cherry tomatoes, or tomato slices from large fresh tomatoes. Sweet tomatoes pair well with salty cream cheese, and cherry varieties are usually the sweetest.

You can make the tarts more colorful by using colorful heirloom tomatoes too! If using large tomatoes, place the slices on each tartlet in a single layer so they don’t bring excess liquid.

Ingredients

Find exact ingredient amounts in the recipe card at the bottom of this post. Here is a rundown of what you will need.

Pastry

• Butter – unsalted butter. The butter content in this pastry is very high which means there are lots of layers of butter in the dough. This will achieve extra flaky pastry.
• All-purpose flour
• Salt – For flavor
• Ice water – To bind the dough. Using icy cold water will keep the butter cold.
• Vinegar – a little acid helps to create a more tender pastry by breaking down the gluten bonds in the dough. Substitute it for lemon juice if you have no vinegar.

Herb cream cheese

• Cream cheese softened to room temperature
• Garlic
• Fresh thyme – You can substitute and add other fresh herbs like fresh basil, parsley, cilantro, or chives.
• Salt – just a pinch of sea salt according to taste as cream cheese is already fairly salty
• Black pepper

Other ingredients

• Egg for the egg wash
• Finely shaved parmesan cheese
• Fresh thyme for topping

Method

The pastry

Begin by chopping the butter into 1inch cubes and placing them in the freezer for 5 minutes to ensure it’s nice and cold.

To a large bowl add the flour, sugar, and salt and mix them together. Add the cold cubes of butter to the flour.

Next, use a pastry cutter to roughly cut the butter into the flour, but not too small. Leave most of the butter in fairly large chunks. If the butter is melting at any point, place the bowl in the refrigerator.

Pour the lemon juice or vinegar over the dough and add the ice-cold water. Secondly, add a tablespoon of water at a time then use a spatula or your hands to combine it into a shaggy dough. Add any extra water in slowly, a tablespoon at a time.

It should hold together easily when pressed but not be sticky. If the dough is super crumbly, add a bit more water. Form the dough into a mound and let it chill in the fridge for 10 minutes. If your room temperature is very cold, you can begin rolling right away.

Laminating

On a floured work surface, roll the dough with a rolling pin into a 5x10inch rectangle. You will see large chunks of butter in the dough. Dust off any excess flour from the top of the dough.

Fold the bottom third of the dough up to the middle, then fold the top third of the dough over top to make a pamphlet shape. That was Fold 1. Turn the dough a quarter turn and roll it back out into a rectangle and repeat the folding. That was fold 2.

Repeat this process 4 more times so you do 6 folds in total.

If you are making this on a cold day then there is no need for any fridge rest in between the rolling of the layers unless the butter is melting. In the summertime, the rough puff pastry will likely need a fridge rest in between every second fold to ensure the butter stays chilled.

After the last fold, wrap the dough up tightly in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours or up to 24. 

Note – The pictures below are of a triple batch of pastry dough, so there is a larger amount pictured.

The filling

In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese with a hand mixer until smooth. Add in finely chopped garlic, fresh thyme, salt, and pepper, and mix together. Set this aside. Halve cherry tomatoes or slice large tomatoes. Set them aside.

Assembling

Preheat the oven to  400°F/205°C. Line a large baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper.

Remove the dough from the fridge and place it on a lightly floured work surface. Roll it into a large 10×12 inch rectangle. Cut the dough vertically down the middle, then twice horizontally to make six rectangles. A pizza cutter is very helpful for this.

Use a sharp knife to score a little 1/2 inch border around each rectangle, trying not to cut right through the pastry. Place the puff pastry pieces on the prepared baking sheet.

Spread the cream cheese in the middle of each rectangle and arrange the sliced tomatoes on top of the cream cheese.

Whisk together the egg and water to create the egg wash, then use a pastry brush to brush the egg mixture along the border of each pastry.

Bake the pastries for around 18 minutes until deep golden brown and puffed.