Treacle Tart – “How to Feed Your Family for £5 a Day” by Bernadine Lawrence

I made this Treacle Tart as part of my review of “How to Feed your Family for £5 a Day” by Bernadine Lawrence. For book review click here. This Treacle Tart is encased in a beautifully short sweet shortcrust pastry and was enjoyed by all who ate it!

I took the opportunity to use the pie plate I’d been sent from Great British Bakeware by George Wilkinson and have to say that like the loaf tin it’s heavy gauge made for superior heat conduction and is exactly what you need when cooking pastry. I still can’t get used to how long the tin stays hot after coming out of the oven – superb! Plus the fact that this pie plate (+ whole range) is metal tool safe is really useful when you need to cut a slice of tart/pie out!

I’m entering this Treacle Tart into the London “Best of British” challenge hosted by Fiona Macclean of London Unattached  and The Face of New World Appliances.  I figured that as ‘Treacle Tart’ is Cockney rhyming slang for ‘heart’ there has to be a very strong link to London!

NB: All views expressed are my own with no financial gain to me!

4.84 from 6 votes

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Treacle Tart

A healthier variant of Treacle Tart using sweet wholemeal shortcrust pastry.

Servings 4 -6

Author Bernadine Lawrence

Ingredients

• 240 g Sweet Wholemeal Shortcrust Pastry base lining a 20cm round flan tin 2cm deep, not blind baked (use the quantities below to make 240g of dough. Remember to save the excess pastry for the lattice decoration)
• 55 g self-raising wholemeal flour
• 85 g plain white flour
• 20 g soft light brown sugar
• 50 g cold unsalted butter or margarine
• 1 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1 tbsp cold water
• Filling
• 225 g golden syrup
• Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 75 g breadcrumbs
• 1 egg beaten, for glazing

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F), Gas 5.
2. Mix together the flours and the sugar and quickly rub in the butter or margarine (try not to take too long as this pastry should stay as cool as possible). Add the oil and 1 tablespoon of cold water and mix to a dough. Roll into a ball, wrap in cling film and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes. Roll the pastry out evenly on a floured surface. To line the tin or dish, roll the pastry up onto the rolling pin and unroll it over the flan tin. Gently lower the pastry onto the tin, then press it firmly into the corners or edges.
3. Roll a rolling pin over the rim of the tin to get rid of any excess pastry.
4. To make the filling, warm the golden syrup in a saucepan with the lemon zest and juice. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs into the syrup, stir and slowly pour into the pastry case.
5. Make strips from the pastry trimmings and make a lattice pattern over the tart. Brush the ends with water to stick them to the pastry case. Glaze the pastry strips with the beaten egg.
6. Place the tart on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the filling is just set.

Recipe Notes

Although the recipe called to 1 tablespoon of both water and sunflower oil, on the day I baked it was quite warm and I found I needed an extra drizzle of both to bring the pastry together.
Having made this tart twice now I can say that if you have a large lemon you need to reduce the amount of juice to about 1/2 to 3/4 otherwise you end up with 'Lemon Tart' drowning out the treacle flavour!