TREACLE TART

I love gathering round the table for lunch on Sunday.  Today we had Roast Chicken with Treacle Tart for pudding.  My Mummy taught me how to make this wonderful recipe.

It is quick, delicious and the prefect end to any meal.

TREACLE TART  - Serves 8

Ingredients

320g Pre-rolled shortcrust pastry, 200g Bread crumbs, 1 Lemon, 1 454g Tin of golden syrup

Equipment

1 x 11 inch flan tin with removable base 

• Heat the oven to 180
• Pour two inches of hot water into the sink or a bowl and place the tin of golden syrup into the water, this will slightly melt the syrup making it easier to pour
• Line the flan tin with the pastry and lightly stab the pastry with a fork to help the heat escape from the pastry when it is cooking.  
• Run a knife around the top edge of the tin to trim the pastry in line with the top of the flan tin, this gives a neat finish to your crust.
• Fill the pastry evenly with the bread crumbs
• Using a zester, remove the zest from half the lemon and sprinkle over the tart
• Cut the lemon into quarters and squeeze the juice from quarter of the lemon over the bread crumbs
• The golden syrup should now be slightly runny.   Pour half a tin over the bread crumbs as evenly as possible, don’t worry if it is not perfect as it will even out when cooking
• Pop the tart in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the pastry is cooked and the tart is golden
• Serve with cream or ice cream ... or both if your my Daddy ...!

Cooking notes

If you over cook the tart it will be very hard and chewy, this is not the result you are looking for.  It should be be slightly gooey and slice easily.

I did not have long this morning so I cheated a little and used Justrol shortcrust pastry.  I would recommend this if you are short of time.  I find it is best to remove the pastry from the fridge 20 minutes before you need it.  This way it won’t crack when you unwrap it.  If it does crack use your fingers to push it back together.  In the same way .. if it is not quite wide enough use scraps of pastry to fill in any gaps.  I will post my pastry recipe in the next couple of days.

Cut any left over lemon into wedges and freeze ... they are great when you need a little bit of lemon ... you can also add them to gin and tonic ... ice and lemon in one.

I tend to have breadcrumbs in the freezer as I make breadcrumbs and freeze them when ever white bread, especially baguette, has gone slightly stale.  If you don't then they are easy to make.  Place 200g of white bread (normally about 4 slices) in a food processor and blitz for 30-40 seconds.  If you are making them it is worth making double and freezing another 200g for a later date.  To store seal in a plastic food bag and place in the freezer.

Adapting

The tart tastes just as good without the lemon so don’t worry if you don’t have one.  If you prefer orange in your puddings you can replace the lemon with an orange.

 

Comments

[Sarah]

Hello, great blog - your friend Milly suggested I take a look. I think we started blogging for similar reasons - so much easier than emailing recipes out to friends (and somewhere to write down my burgeoning foodie thoughts)!