Mushroom, Shallot and Herbed Goat Cheese Tarts
These fabulously flavorful mushroom, shallot and herbed goat cheese tarts are the perfect creamy, flaky bite you need this time of year. These tarts are super easy to make and are great as a gourmet looking appetizer, snack, or accompaniment to any meal. Shallots and garlic are sautéd together with mushrooms, lots of herbs, white wine and creamy goat cheese to make the perfect filling for these puff pastry tarts. Try to only eat one!
Inspiration and Recipe Thoughts
These tarts are as delicious as they are adorable! I absolutely love puff pastry, and this is the perfect little tart if you do too. This recipe was inspired by a previous dinner I’d made that also used this pastry: beef wellington. I had always wanted to make beef wellington because I love everything in this delicious and fancy looking entree, but never had until recently. I finally made it for Eli and I and it was so good. I had extra puff pastry afterwards and decided to come up with a recipe centered around this delicious dough, and these tarts were born! I’ve made a big batch for Eli and I for dinner and we ate them all! I promise, they’re delish.
These tarts are so good, so easy to make, and take about half an hour to bake so they’re pretty quick to make too. The shallot, garlic, and mushroom mix all held together perfectly with the creamy herbed goat cheese and parsley make for a great appetizer or anytime snack that is worth waiting for.
How it’s made
These fabulous little tarts look much more involved than they are. First let’s talk about the puff pastry. Check out my recipe notes below, but to reiterate about this yummy dough, here are a few thoughts. Make sure to either buy the pre-cut 4 inch squares of frozen puff pastry dough, or buy any puff pastry dough you have at your local grocery store and cut it into 4 inch squares. Don’t forget to thaw overnight, or at room temperature for at least two hours if you’re using these the same day you got them frozen.
A bit about how I love my tarts. Puff pastry puffs up of course – it’s called puff pastry after all! And as much as I love a good puff, I also don’t love to loose too much of the flaky goodness to the table and floor and also love a great folding pattern. What I mean by that is: I like to pinch the corners or sides of my puff pastry before they go in the oven. This definitely stops the pastry from puffing up to it’s maximum, but I prefer to make cute little shapes from pinching. I also don’t love the pastry flakes getting everywhere when I go to eat them when they are in full puff. So I pinch! Check out these pictures below for my two favorite pinch designs:
And don’t forget the egg wash!
As you can see, I prefer two different shapes. The top design is made by pinching in each corner and the bottom design by folding over and pinching just two sides. Sometimes these don’t completely stay in during baking, but it’s fine! They still look fabulous and taste even more delicious.
For the filling, it is very simple and easy to make and honestly tastes great on it’s own. Saute the shallot and garlic in olive oil, add the mushrooms, herbs, and spices, then take it off the heat and add in the cheese and parsley. That’s it! Then stuff the puff to your heart’s content.
Hope you enjoy this one!
Mushroom, Shallot and Herbed Goat Cheese Tarts
Ingredients
- 10 4-inch puff pastry sheet squares see notes!
- 8 oz mushrooms any kind will do! sliced
- 1 shallot shallot finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 1/3 cup parsley leaves roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/4 cup parmesan
- 4 oz goat cheese
- 1/4 teaspoon each of sage, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper
- 1 egg, whisked for egg wash
- 1/4 cup white wine can sub with chicken broth!)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400F and prepare two large baking pans. Arrange the 4 inch square puff pastry sheets (see notes!) onto the baking pans, separated by an inch or two. Do not add more than 6 puff pastry squares to each baking pan. Using a fork, poke small holes onto the surface of each square, taking care not to completely poke through the dough.
- Heat up 1 tablespoon of olive oil to a large skillet on medium high heat and add the shallot and garlic. Saute for 1-2 minutes then add the mushrooms, the last tablespoon of olive oil, and all of the spices. Mix and cook for another 2 minutes, then add the white wine. Cook for another 4-5 minutes.
- Turn off the heat. Mix in the goat cheese, parmesan cheese, and parsley and stir to combine together until the goat cheese has melted and thickened into the mix.
- Pour generous scoops of this mix onto the top of each puff pastry square. You can either not pinch any of the sides and let them naturally puff up, or you can pinch in the sides like I prefer to do, to form a bit of a fun design. If you do this, you can close them up any way you like but I always prefer two ways: pinching each of the four corners to make a curved edge on each side, or to only pinch in two of the four sides to make a boat-shaped looking tart. See my photos in the post above for a better idea of how to do this and what it looks like! I like to top off any puff pastry with extra filling.
- Grab your whisked egg and add the egg wash over the top of only the bare puff pastry on all sides of each square (not over the filling). Bake for 25-30 minutes until the puff pastry is golden brown. Enjoy!