Remember apple roses? If you have lots of heirloom tomatoes, why can’t you make heirloom tomato roses? That was our question earlier this week as we surveyed a bumper crop of late-season heirloom tomatoes.
Rose pastries look complicated, but they’re really pretty simple. All you need are some strips of puff pastry dough, thinly sliced fruit (or in this case, tomatoes), a little olive oil, and a muffin tin.
Heirloom Tomato Rose Pastries
Savory pastries made from thinly sliced heirloom tomatoes, rolled up in puff pastry dough.
Ingredients
- 3 sheets puff pastry dough
- flour for dusting
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 large heirloom tomatoes
Instructions
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On a lightly floured board, roll out the puff pastry so it is approximately 8-10 inches long and 6-8 inches wide. Cut the dough in half so you have two long strips, approximately 8-10 inches long and 3-4 inches wide. Brush the strips very lightly with olive oil. Bake the strips at 375 degrees for 10 minutes, or until they start to puff. Remove from oven.
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Core the tomatoes, then slice them from top to bottom in very thin slices (approx 1/4 inch or less if possible). Cut each tomato slice in half so you have rainbow-shaped pieces. Line the tomatoes up along the top half of each puff pastry dough strip so that the "arch" of the rainbow peeks out over the puff pastry dough. Continue overlapping the "rainbows" across the sheet of dough until you get to the end. Carefully fold the bottom half up to the top to "tuck the tomatoes into bed." Then roll up the entire stretch of dough like a pinwheel.
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Grease six muffin tins with a small amount of olive oil. Carefully place the rolled-up roses into the muffin tins. Bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes, or until the puff pastry is golden brown and the pastry is cooked in the center. If the tomatoes start to brown, cover them with foil and continue baking.
Rolling Up the Pastries
So just to review: First, after your strip of puff pastry dough has pre-baked for 10 minutes, brush it with a little olive oil.
Next, lay the sliced heirloom tomato across the top half of the dough strip, lined up like overlapping “rainbows.”
Then fold the bottom half of the dough up torward the top. Now you’re ready to roll the strip up like a pinwheel:
Then place the completed roses into a lightly greased muffin tin. Now you’re ready to bake!
You should bake them until they are just a little browner than you think they need to be. This is so you can make sure that the puff pastry dough has cooked all the way through. Once they’re done, they should pop out of the muffin tin fairly easily. You can run a knife around the edges if you need to loosen them.
Serve them with fresh herbs and freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese. When you eat them warm, they’re best, but you can also enjoy them at room temperature.
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Heirloom tomato roses made with puff pastry
Hi! I'm Jeanne Fratello - a writer, reporter, and food enthusiast who is on a mission to write great stories about food and where your food comes from.
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