Treacle Tart

I first heard of treacle tarts through the Harry Potter series. In the books they mentioned that treacle tarts were Harry’s favorite dessert, which I found intriguing because I had never heard of them before. Years later, I was reading about English desserts and pastries and came across them again. This time I did a bit more research and found out that the key ingredient to treacle tarts is something called “golden syrup”, which is also known as light treacle and tastes kind of like liquid toffee with a butterscotch kick. There is also black treacle, which is similar to golden syrup in taste but has a slightly bitter flavor. It is pretty difficult to find in the United States, but I remembered an English bakery/grocery store in Santa Monica called Tudor House that I used to go to freshman year of college for meat pies (their meat pies are REALLY good), and figured that if anyone had golden syrup, they probably would. Well, I made my way over to Santa Monica last weekend and low and behold, there was an adorable golden tin canister of Lyle’s Golden Syrup sitting dusty on the shelf. I bought it, brought it home, and set upon making one of the tastiest desserts I’ve had in years. It has the texture of pecan pie filling without the pecans, and has a lovely, lemony, carmely toffee flavor with a hint of ginger. I used ground ginger in this recipe, but if you had crystallized ginger I bet that would be really tasty too. I know finding golden syrup can be a bit of a pain, but trust me, it is worth it! I plan on making this for my family at Christmas time, it’s going to my new holiday staple. This recipe is for a 9 x 9 inch tart pan, if you want to make it in a pie pan I would multiply the filling and crust recipes by 1.5.

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Treacle Tart

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 35 minutes

Cooling Time 30 minutes

Total Time 55 minutes

Author Eva Kosmas Flores

Ingredients

Filling

• 2 Egg Yolks
• 1 Cup Golden Syrup
• 2/3 Cup Plain Breadcrumbs
• 1/4 Cup Butter melted
• 1 Tablespoon Milk
• 1 Teaspoon Grated Lemon Zest
• 1 Teaspoon Lemon Juice
• 1/4 Teaspoon Ground Ginger

Crust

• 1 and 1/3 Cup Flour
• 1/2 Cup Butter
• 2 Tablespoons Water
• 1/4 Teaspoon Nutmeg
• 1/4 Teaspoon Salt

Instructions

1. First, prepare the crust. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, then cut the butter into pea-sized pieces over the flour mixture, add the water, and mix together with your hands until a dough forms. If you have a food processor you can just combine all of the ingredients in the processor with a few pulses to make the dough. Line a 9 x 9 inch tart pan with the dough and set it aside.

2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Gently warm up the golden syrup by placing the tin canister in a small pot of water, 2 inches high, over low heat for 5 minutes. Make sure the lid of the canister is open.

3. Meanwhile, in a large bowl mix together the breadcrumbs, ginger, and lemon zest until evenly distributed. Make a little well in the middle and add the egg yolks, golden syrup, lemon juice, butter, and milk. Mix the ingredients together until well blended.

4. Pour the treacle filling into the tart pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until the top of the treacle is just beginning to show a hint of browning in some spots. Allow to cool for 30 minutes before serving.