Treacle Tart

Before tasting the syrup filled Treacle Tart, I imagined this was the British version of say Pecan Pie without the Pecans or Butter Tarts in larger form. Wrong! This is so.much.sweeter! Like the level of sweetness one imagines results in teeth falling out from one of those cartoons in the 50’s…but this is a British classic regardless and served with custard or probably better tart Greek yogurt, a slice of this would go a long way when serving a bunch of people.

In fact, when I told a co-worker the plans to make this over the weekend her eyes lit up as if it was Christmas and she said with such glee that it’s “such comfort food and has to be eaten with custard or cream and is great to finish off a Sunday roast with.” What makes this dish are breadcrumbs…yes you read that right!!

So creamy vanilla custard was purchased to accompany this and she was 100% right, this tart cannot be consumed without a subtle dairy to calm the sweetness down. This is rather simple to make and can be eaten cold or warm so is perfect to whip up ahead of time so please add a comment below of your thoughts and experiences with this or how you found making it!

Treacle Tart History

The origin of Treacle Tart is interesting as golden syrup was only invented in the 1880’s, yet a year prior a lady named Mary Jewry came up with the recipe as treacle simply refers to any kind of syrup. As is so often the case the original recipe doesn’t come very close to the recipe for this tart today, but it is apart of the British cuisine nonetheless.

It was historically notably popular with poorer people due to the abundance of sugar and bread and very little expensive ingredients such as fruit or spices. And here in England, treacle tart is almost always made with golden syrup, so if you want to go authentic than try and get your hands on that before subbing another syrup.

Tips for the best Treacle Tart

Type of pastry here: The pastry is most closely linked to shortcrust pastry so if you don’t want to make it or want to save time you can purchase some premade shortcrust pastry crust.

Two essential ingredients here: Let’s talk about the bread crumbs in this dish, they create a perfect crust and the lemon zest alongside those crumbs weaves itself throughout the dish so don’t skimp out those two ingredients – particularly the lemon zest which is necessary to cut through the sweetness.

Recommending making the tart with the amount of syrup here: Treacle tart comes from golden syrup and the filling contributes to the gooey consistency, I cannot recommend decreasing the amount of syrup without changing the gooey result.

Treacle Tart
Adapted from Saveur.com
Serves 10

Ingredients:
Pastry
240 grams / 1 1/2 cups plain flour
85 grams / 3 ounces butter, cubed and chilled
1/2 teaspoon salt
80 milliliters / 1/3 cup ice water
Filling
454 grams / 1 cup golden syrup
2 tablespoons / 30 grams butter
32 grams / 6 tablespoons bread crumbs
18 grams / 3 tablespoons pouring cream
1 egg, lightly beaten
Pinch of salt
1 lemon zest, finely chopped

Directions:
Place the flour, butter and salt into a bowl and combine with a pastry cutter or knife until the mixture resembles rough breadcrumbs with pea sized butter pieces strewn throughout the flour mix.

Add in the ice water and stir together until a dough is formed.

Turn out onto a work surface and shape into a disk, wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the golden syrup into a pot and heat on medium until it softens and is easy to stir.

Remove from the heat and add in the butter, bread crumbs, cream, egg and zest and stir to combine. Set aside to cool.

Remove the dough from the fridge and roll out to fit into a fluted tart dish.

Press firmly into the edges and trim the excess edges off from the edge of your dish.

Pierce the pastry with a fork all over, cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375F.

Cover the pastry with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans and place in the oven to bake for 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and remove the baking beans returning to the oven until lightly golden, approximately 10 minutes.

Remove and pour in the filling mixture.

Bake until the filling is just set, approximately 30 minutes.

Remove and allow to cool.

Slice and serve with a solid dollop of Greek yogurt.

Enjoy!

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