Open Heart Savouries

These were devised as a tasty bit of weird for my friend Liz's birthday.

YOU WILL NEED
(makes 25 canapés)
15 cherry tomatoes
1 pack puff pastry
200g cream cheese
1 red pepper
1 egg

small pastry cutter (Doesn't have to be heart-shaped, but if it isn't you can't do the Open Heart Savouries pun, which would be a shame)


THE METHOD

# Pop on the oven and get it to a nice warm Gas 2, 149c, 300f.

# Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. This isn't essential, but advisable unless you want to try cleaning caramel sugar off your tray. Ick.

# Slice tomatoes in half and place cut side up on the tray. Season. This bit is really up to you. I prefer a good amount of caster sugar, a touch of salt, and a good twist of black pepper. Feel free to go crazy with basil, thyme, chilli, anything really.

# Tray of tomatoes in the oven. They will take a varying amount of time, depending on your oven. They'll be fine for an hour. After that, start checking every ten minutes until they look caramelly and dried and luscious. Eat one or two. They're amazing. Make these whenever you want. They store well in a jar of olive oil to be nibbled on as sweeties. Nom.



# I used pre-rolled puff pastry because I'm a terrible cheat. If you're an honest person, roll out your pastry to about half a centimetre thick. Line another baking tray with paper.

# Cut out twenty eight little pastry hearts and arrange on the tray.

# Beat up an egg and brush the hearts with the wash.

# Cut out more hearts, but these ones need a circle cut out of the middle of them. Place each heart-ring on top of the egg-washed hearts. Then give another egg wash. Put them in the fridge for half an hour.



# While you're waiting, finely chop a red pepper and give it a quick whizz in the blender with the cream cheese. Just mix, you don't really want to purée.

# Turn the oven up to Gas 7, 218c, 425f. Put tray of pastries in the oven. They will take about 20 minutes to bake. Again, keep an eye out.

# When the pastry hearts are ready, remove from oven and let them cool a while. They will have little circles on the top. Cut these out and voila! Little heart pastry cases!



# Fill the cases with a little cream cheese mix. Don't throw away any leftover cream cheese. It makes lovely sandwich spread, or dip or something.

# Pop a cherry tomato on each pastry and you're done! Eat some. Marvel. I did. I'm not sure I expected this to work.



# Serve at a birthday party with excellent friends. Give them pointed looks until they tell you how amazing you are in the kitchen.