This week, Roy decided it was time to fulfil a request he has had many of his friends make. Several of Roys friends are fans of Harry Potter, and they knew he was a fan of treacle tart, but they had no idea what this tart was. They asked me and I explained that it was an easy, old fashioned, cheap but tasty English dessert tart. They thought this sounded great and asked if Roy could share the recipe for it. Roy did a lot of research into the tart and decided to go for the basic version, with just lemon. Many add ground ginger to the filling though, which Roy thinks would be nice but a little less authentic. So this week, Roy Creates Good Old Fashioned Treacle Tart.
You Will Need:
The proportions of the filling will depend on the size of your tart. In general, it is one cup of golden syrup to 1 cup of breadcrumbs and the zest and juice of ½ a lemon.
- Pastry. Roy used store bought shortcrust pastry, but you can make your own if you prefer.
- 2 cups of some sort of treacle. Most recipes tend to use golden syrup, and that is what Roy decided to use too as it is easily available (and was classed as a type of treacle when this tart was being created, as it is a by product of making sugar). You can use real treacle though if you prefer, or even molasses.
- The zest and juice of a lemon
- 2 cups of soft, white breadcrumbs – Roy found that it took about 3 to 4 slices of white bread (crusts removed) per cup of breadcrumbs
Method:
- Line a tart tin with the pastry and put it in the fridge for half an hour to rest.
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
- Blind bake the tart case for 15 to 20 minutes. To do this, put a piece of baking paper inside the tart case and cover with either baking beads or something like rice or dried beans (do not cook with the rice or beans afterwards though!)
- Gently heat the lemon juice and golden syrup until the syrup is very liquid and everything is combined.
- Remove the paper and weights from the tart case.
- Sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the base of the tart
- Pour over the golden syrup mix (you want to have a little gap between the top of the pastry and the golden syrup so that it doesn’t boil over – Roy learned this the hard way!)
- Gently mix so the breadcrumbs are all soaked and evenly distributed
- If you like, lay strips of pastry over the top of the tart, like Roy has done. Some of the old recipes do this, some don’t so it is up to you!
- Bake at 200 degrees for 15 minutes and then turn the oven down to 180 degrees and cook for a further 15 to 20 minutes or until the tart is very lightly firm.
- Cool and enjoy with cream or icecream!