Vegetable Pesto Tart

***Delicious cheesy pastry filled with creamy pesto and roasted vegetables!***

Serves 8

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

110g self raising flour
55g grated cheddar cheese
70g very cold butter
1 tsp paprika
Pinch of salt
3 tbsp beaten egg

For the filling:

1 courgettte
1 sweet potato
1 aubergine
100g mascarpone
100g pesto
20g fresh bread crumbs
80g parmesan (finely grated)
pinch salt
2 eggs
1/2 tbsp olive oil

Method:

In a food processor, blitz the butter, flour, cheese, paprika, and salt until it forms a bread crumb consistency.Add the 3 tbsp beaten egg and blitz JUST enough for the dough to come together. You should be able to squeeze it together in your hands to form a ball.
Wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for around 30 minutes.
Pre-heat your oven to 190C fan
When the pastry has chilled, roll it out to about 4mm thick in a circle, big enough to line your tin with. I used a 7 inch case, but a 8 inch would still work with this amount of pastry!
Grease the tin, and then roll the pastry on top, gently pressing down into all of the groves.
Trim the excess pastry and prick the bottom with a fork.
To help prevent the pastry from shrinking, chill the tart case again before baking - around 20 minutes is fine.
Blind bake the pastry with baking beans or equivalent for 15 minutes.
Remove the baking beans and bake for a further 10-12 minutes until the bottom is nicely golden.
Allow the pastry to cool and meanwhile, prepare the filling.
For the vegetables, wash (and peel the sweet potato) and use a mandolin so you get thin circular slices.
Place the slices in a bowl with a little bit of water and heat on high inthe microwave for a minute or so so that they are soft enought to bend. Some may take less time than others, the sweet potato will take longer.
Leave to cool and dry off.
For the pesto filling, mix the mascarpone, pesto, breadcrumbs, salt, parmesan and eggs and mix together until fully combined.
Spread the mixture evenly inside the pastry case - you want to fill it almost to the top to give the vegetables a good base to sink into.
Start with a slice of each vegetable and place them overlapping each other before rolling up to create a tight swirl that will be the middle of the tart. Place this securely into the pesto mixture.
Keep adding the slices around in concentric circles until you reach the edge.
Brush the top of the vegetables lightly with the olive oil, and bake in the oven at 175 degrees C for around half an hour, until the vegetables are just starting the brown and the pesto mixture has set.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin and leaving to cool fully.
Enjoy!