Savoury Pear, Fig and Cheese Tart

This is a dessert recipe – sort of. It’s a delicious way to round off a hearty meal.

We do everything from scratch, but here's the cheat's version so you can make this one at home. To drink we’d serve the delectable Churchill’s Ten Years Tawny Port with its spicy, nuttiness and full bodied kick to stand up to blue cheese.

Ingredients

• 1 sheet of puff pastry
• 6 fresh or sundried Turkish figs
• 1 tablespoon of runny honey
• 1 fresh pear, sliced
• 1 tablespoon of mascarpone
• 50g lightly toasted walnuts
• 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 100g of your preferred blue cheese, we recommend Spanish Valdeòn

Method

Cut your pastry into two rectangles, fold the edges and blind bake until the pastry is cooked.

Layer the base with mascarpone, pear, honey and sun dried or fresh figs.

Add a handful of blue cheese of your choice, then garnish with chopped walnuts, a few thyme sprigs and a sprinkling of black pepper.

Flash the tart in the oven for a further minute, or until the cheese begins to soften, but don’t let it melt.

Set aside to cool and serve with a light port or fortified red wine.