Danielle Alvarez's Whipped Feta and Tomato Galette

Method

Place the flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl and stir to combine.

Add in the cold diced butter and use your fingertips to break the butter up. You are not looking for even consistency here, you want some large chunks of butter and some little pieces as well. Next, use your hands to flatten the chunks of butter by crushing them in between the palms of your hand creating little sheets. Alternatively, you can dump everything onto your bench and press the butter down into the bench if that’s easier.

Make a well in the flour and butter mixture and pour in 120ml of the cold water and use your hands and bench scraper to help you mix the water into the flour. If there is still a lot of dry bits of dough and floury pieces add another 20 ml of water until the dough feels like it will stick together without becoming sticky and wet. Work the
dough to combine everything but rather than kneading it, press it together, turn it over, press it together, and continue this process until the dough is holding together.

Use the bench scraper to cut the dough in half and stack it onto itself and press down. Repeat this once more and then cut the dough in half and press the dough into a rectangle. Wrap in baking paper and place into your fridge for at least 1 hour but up to 48 hours. Up until this point, you can also freeze the dough and defrost it in the fridge overnight before using.

On a well floured bench, roll out your dough to about 3mm in thickness. Use your Mud platter as a stencil to cut out the pastry round. Place the pastry on the platter and place it into the fridge until you’re ready to top it.

Preheat your oven to 200C.

Place your feta, a pinch of salt and 150ml cream in the bowl of a food processor and process until fairly smooth and spreadable. Use a little more cream if needed. Set aside.

Cut all your cherry tomatoes in half and set aside.

Spread the feta on the pastry leaving a 3cm edge. Slice the garlic thinly and sprinkle that on the feta. Top with all the cherry tomatoes, cut side up. Stack them on each other to completely cover the base. You may not need all of them. Sprinkle the tomatoes with a little salt.

Fold the pastry edge over itself to form a nice edge. Brush it with egg wash and crack black pepper onto the pastry and place into the oven. Turn the heat down to 180C. Bake for 45-60 minutes until the edge is deeply golden and tomatoes are starting to brown. Slide the galette off the mud platter and onto a cooling rack. When cooled, cut into slices, drizzle with honey and sprinkle with fresh thyme leaves. Replace on your Mud platter and serve.