Roasting grapes concentrates their sweetness, transforming them from a cheese platter filler to a luxurious appetizer. These barquette pastry shells are a cinch to make; fitting the dough into the molds is just like making a piecrust. If you can’t find barquette molds at your favorite gourmet kitchen supply store, you can make crusts in regular muffin tins.
Ingredients
- ¼ cup sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 6 tablespoons butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 pound red seedless grapes
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
- Honey
- ½ cup crumbled blue cheese
- Fresh thyme leaves, for garnish
Instructions
Preheat oven to 400°. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, sugar and salt. Incorporate butter into flour mixture until well combined. Stir in eggs until a soft dough forms. Shape into a ball and cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate for 30 minutes.On a rimmed baking sheet, toss together grapes and olive oil. Bake 10 minutes; add walnuts to pan, and bake 5 minutes more.
After the dough has chilled, roll it out on a lightly floured surface to ¼ inch thick. Drape dough over 8 barquette molds; press dough into bottoms and up sides. Roll a rolling pin over top of molds to trim away excess dough. Prick bottoms and sides of dough with a fork; place dough-filled molds on a baking sheet.
Bake until lightly golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. Remove the barquettes from molds; drizzle the bottoms with a light layer of honey. Add desired amount of blue cheese. Add 3 or 4 grapes to each barquette shell, depending on size. Sprinkle with toasted walnuts; drizzle honey over the top. Sprinkle with thyme.
