Golden Hour Tart – Broad Bean and Pea Purée with Roasted Tomatoes and Egusi Seeds

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If you cook my recipes, your food will look like mine.

Golden Hour Broad Bean Tart

British-Inspired

Table of Contents

✨ Before We Begin…

This dish began in the woods. I made it beside my trusted Trangia on a mild June day, Georgia curled nearby, and I felt that quiet kind of love that sneaks up on you when you’re holding something warm and real in your hands. Later, I turned it into a tart — still simple, still grounded, but with a nod to the kind of plating that makes you pause and notice.

I once met Simon Rogan, in ASDA, at the very beginning of this journey. I surprised him by asking for his autograph and I came home starry-eyed. That encounter lives in my work quietly. His plating style — precise, natural, deeply British — gave me permission to let food feel both wild and elegant. This tart carries that thread.

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The Cook’s Mind

Make-Ahead

  • Tart shells can be baked and cooled 1–2 days ahead
  • Purée can be made the day before and kept chilled
  • Assemble and bake tarts fresh for best texture

Freezer-Friendly

  • Pastry can be frozen raw in discs or lined in tins
  • Purée is best fresh but can freeze in ice cube trays

Rescue Mission — What To Do When Things Go Wrong

  • If pastry shrinks, patch gently with raw dough scraps and bake a bit longer
  • If purée is too thick, loosen with olive oil or a splash of aquafaba
  • If your tart overbakes, serve it with more fresh greens to balance

Key Substitutions

  • Use spelt flour for a lighter pastry
  • If you can’t find ebusi seeds, use toasted sunflower or pumpkin seeds
  • Rolls: whatever you use, find the softest roll you can. This isn’t a time for firm.

Cooking Parlance

  • “Dotting” purée = small spoonfuls added after baking for visual lift and contrast
  • “Blind baking” = gently baking a pastry case before adding the filling, using baking beans to keep it flat and crisp

A Note on Origin

There’s a quiet Britishness here — from the wholemeal pastry to the watercress and broad beans. But it started outdoors, beside a small stove in Serpentine Woods, with a dog and a spoon and a moment of love. The tart is a quieter echo of that memory, plated in honour of where you’re heading.

Ingredient Focus: Broad Beans

Broad beans are the quiet stars of this dish — soft, green, and full of early summer energy.

✨ Soft as velvet, green as midsummer, with a bite that says you’re here.

To Ingredient Focus: Broad Beans

My Favourite Way To Eat

Outdoors, sat on the ground directly across from Georgia, with barely a breath of space between us. She had tucked herself into the earth, still and patient, watching me quietly as I filmed. I felt lucky — held by the food, and by her. The bun, warm and filled with small treasures, was perfect.

Serving Suggestions

  • Tart: Plate with dots of watercress purée and a few micro-greens or a sliced cherry tomato.
  • Bun: Serve warm from the pan, the bun on a bed of watercress and seeds
  • Both: Add toasted seeds, drizzle with oil, or nestle beside a handful of watercress.

Multi-Purpose Recipe

This recipe has more than one life…
Make the tart for quiet, plated meals at home. Make the bun version for walks, garden days or solo suppers with your dog and a spoon.
Why not make both versions at the same time… and feel how different each one makes you feel… the power of food…

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

  • It’s the same summer flavour story told two ways — soft and rustic, or plated and elegant
  • The broad bean purée is soothing — like a green hummus, but brighter
  • A handful of watercress brings it alive

What Will You Learn Whilst Making This Recipe?

  • How to make wholemeal shortcrust pastry that doesn’t feel heavy
  • How to create a summery broad bean purée that suits toast, tart or spoon
  • How ingredients can go in all sorts of directions

Handpicked to Go With This One

A few recipes that play well together — flavour friends, not just neighbours.

Waste Less: How To Use Up Your Ingredient Stash!

Got something spare — a handful, a spoonful, or the end of a packet? These tags help you find other ways to use it. It’s a small step toward cooking intuitively and wasting less ❣️

, , , , , , ,

For the Bun Version

Warm a soft vegan bun. Spoon in the broad bean purée, add a few roasted tomatoes, some seeds, and a little watercress. Eat it with your hands, outdoors if possible, and share a crumb with someone you love.
Watch it being made outside
Outdoor version recipe

Golden Hour Tart and Bun Recipe

Golden Hour Broad Bean Tart

Julia Savory
This recipe offers a refined yet informal way to enjoy a bright green broad bean and pea purée, roasted tomatoes, toasted seeds and watercress. The tart grew out of the Golden Bun version and for that, you can use my recipe and go down to the Woods…
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Photographed truthfully. If you cook it, yours will look like mine.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Resting time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 50 minutes
Course Dinner, Lunch, Main
Cuisine British Home Cooking
Servings 6 people
Calories/Seving 505 kcal

Ingredients
  

Ingredients for the Wholemeal Pastry

  • 160 g wholemeal plain flour | ideally 'from the fridge' cold
  • 40 g plain flour | ideally 'from the fridge' cold
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 100 g butter | 'from the fridge' cold
  • 2 tbsp icy cold water | plus more if required

Ingredients for Broad Bean Filling

  • 300 g broad beans | double-podded to reveal the perfect green within
  • 240 g peas
  • 3 clove fresh garlic | sliced into waver thin rounds
  • 6 tbsp olive oil
  • 3 tsp lemon juice
  • ¾ tsp ras el hanout
  • ¼ tsp salt | taste the purée first and add pinch by pinch
  • ¼ tsp ground black pepper | taste the purée first and add pinch by pinch

Ingredients for Roasted Tomatoes

  • 3 units tomatoes
  • 6 tsp olive oil
  • ¼ tsp salt | after a while, as a cook, you get a sense with your fingers how much salt to add; you don't need to measure it out. You just know…
  • ¼ tsp ground black pepper | pepper is a personal thing and only add it if you like the spice…

Other Ingredients for serving

  • 2 tbsp egusi seeds | pumpkin or sunflower would work fine too
  • 80 g watercress | to serve with the tarts
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Instructions
 

Preheat the oven and prepare the tins

  • Preheat the oven to 180℃ fan (200℃ conventional).
    If your tart tins are thin, place a thick baking sheet in the oven to preheat – this helps avoid soggy bottoms.
    Grease your tart tins thoroughly. Pacing them on a tray makes them easier to handle.

Make the pastry

  • Sieve both flours and the salt into a large bowl. Add the cold butter in chunks and rub it in with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs – or use a food processor
    160 g wholemeal plain flour, 40 g plain flour, ¼ tsp salt, 100 g butter
  • Add the icy water, bit by bit, to bring the pastry into a soft dough. Handle lightly. It doesn't need kneading.
    Wrap the ball of dough in clingfilm being careful to remove air from the surface of the pastry ball and allow the dough to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Resting helps to avoid shrinkage when cooking.
    2 tbsp icy cold water

Line the tart tins and blind bake

  • Grate the cold pastry into the tart tins, pressing onto the sides first, and then the bases. Prick the bases carefully with a fork.
    Add a layer of tin foil over each tart to ensure the edges are covered and fill the tart with baking beans. If you are doing lots of these, put them into the fridge as you do them, to keep them cold.
  • Cook the tart shells for 20 minutes in the preheated oven. After 20 minutes, bring the tart shells out and look at them. Check for raw spots. If there are raw spots (darker), pop back in the oven for a few minutes. If it's just one tiny raw spot, don't put back into the oven.
    Trust what you see and trust your instincts. Double check the tart shells are complete; that there aren't any holes. If so, just press in a tiny bit more pastry.
    Goals here? Cooked edges. A base (the most important part to check) that is cooked and really quite firm. Please read the 'Bake the tart' section below if you are at all unsure about pastry. There are plenty of variables that will affect outcomes.
  • Leave the oven on for the next steps if you're doing all of this in one session.

Make the broad bean purée

  • Mash the double-podded broad beans and peas together. You can keep some texture or go smooth – it’s up to you.
    300 g broad beans, 240 g peas
  • Add the ingredients listed to complete the purée. Taste it and adjust it to your liking.
    6 tbsp olive oil, 3 tsp lemon juice, ¾ tsp ras el hanout, ¼ tsp salt, ¼ tsp ground black pepper

Prepare the egusi seeds

  • Toast the seeds in a dry frying pan on a low heat. The seeds swell and colour. When done, tip onto a plate to take the heat out of them.
    2 tbsp egusi seeds

Prepare the tomatoes and garlic

  • Cut the tomatoes into slender wedges and cook gently in the oil, with salt and pepper. When the tomatoes are ready, turn the heat off and lay the garlic slices in the warm pan, to gently wilt them and take the edge off their rawness and to pick up some salt and tomato essence from the pan.
    3 units tomatoes, 6 tsp olive oil, ¼ tsp salt, ¼ tsp ground black pepper, 3 clove fresh garlic

Assemble the tart

  • When you are happy with your blind baked tart cases, taking care to keep the filling inside the case (don't spill it on the edge of the case – looks messy), fill each case with the broad bean purée, add the garlic slices and top with tomato slices (remembering to cover the garlic completely with the tomato to protect the garlic).
  • Work in batches – all the purée, then the garlic, then the tomato. It’s quicker and more even.

Bake the tarts

  • Bake in the oven for 40 minutes at 180 ℃ fan (200 ℃ conventional). This finishes the pastry, heats the filling and deepens the tomato flavour.
  • Check for doneness – the tart should be sizzling, the base golden and firm. If no, return to the oven briefly, protecting the tops with foil if needed.
    Using an thermometer can help you know if something is hot in the middle… the temperature should jump up to 70℃. If you put a thermometer in, and the temperature is slowly dragging it's way up, it's not hot enough.
  • Each oven is different. Some ovens will cook uniformly across a batch of tarts like this, some won't. Some ovens are gentler than other ovens due to fan speed and some ovens have two fans or no fans! You might be making 2 tarts so timings will change compared to a full batch of 6 or perhaps two shelves of tarts. To change from being a recipe follower into a cook, you simply need to stay calm, look, learn, listen and adjust. Follow your instincts as well. If it doesn't look cooked, it probably isn't!

Serve

  • Serve warm or cold, with watercress underneath or on the side. Scatter the toasted seeds over the watercress rather than the tart.
    80 g watercress
  • For a little extra: try flower petals, a drizzle of balsamic glaze, or dress the watercress with vinaigrette before plating.

Nutrition

Calories: 505kcalCarbohydrates: 43gProtein: 10gFat: 33gSaturated Fat: 5gPolyunsaturated Fat: 7gMonounsaturated Fat: 20gTrans Fat: 2gSodium: 420mgPotassium: 343mgFiber: 6gSugar: 3gVitamin A: 749IUVitamin C: 23mgCalcium: 58mgIron: 3mg

Nutritional values are estimates only and will vary depending on specific ingredients used. Nutrition is per serving. Information is for the main recipe, not optional accompaniments.

Keywords broad bean tart, individual vegan tart, summer tart
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COPYRIGHT

© The Golden Polar Bear, 2025. Recipes and photography by Julia Savory. If you share this, please pass it along with kindness and if possible share a link back to this site. #ForTheAnimals

Photographed truthfully. If you cook it, yours will look like mine.

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Photographed truthfully.
If you cook my recipes, your food will look like mine.