Use to line the tin, and prick the base in several places with a fork. Grease a deep, loose-bottomed 23cm tart tin and roll the pastry out on a lightly floured surface to about 5mm thick. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark four. Pat it into a disc, wrap and chill for 30 minutes. Rub in the butter until the mixture forms large crumbs, then add just enough cold water to bring it into a dough. Put the flour into a large bowl with a pinch of salt. Liquidsġ00g cold butter, cubed, plus extra to grease I'll pour the syrup mixture over the crumbs in the case rather than mixing them together in a pan, so the top layer stays relatively dry and crisp. To get the best of both worlds, I'll be using quite a bit more syrup than Bareham and Hopkinson, but almost as many breadcrumbs. The texture, however, while still a little dry, is pleasantly chewy with a nice crunchy top – a striking contrast to most of the others, with their wobbly, almost custardy fillings. Rankin goes for brown instead of the standard white crumbs, which, although it almost certainly isn't what they used at school, I find I quite like they add a certain malty flavour.īareham and Hopkinson use a high proportion of crumbs to syrup – in fact, I find I have to more than double the 7-8 tablespoons suggested by the recipe to even come close to saturating the crumbs. Bell uses a mixture of bread and grated apple, which, though pleasant, changes the character of the tart entirely – it becomes soft and fruity, rather than sticky and stodgy. Hix suggests using oatmeal instead in his Norfolk Treacle Tart, which, though nice enough, doesn't deliver the sodden fluffiness I've come to associate with the dish. Breadīreadcrumbs aren't the only option for the substance of the filling. Egg-washing the blind-baked shell, as Rankin suggests, helps keep the base crisp during cooking. Hix and Norwak pour their filling straight into the uncooked pastry, which is a shame with such a liquid filling, a soggy bottom doesn't even come into it – the pastry's still raw. Lard helps with the crunch, but butter supplies more richness of flavour, so I'm sticking with that. Nice as the sweet pastries are, this isn't a dessert which requires any further sugar, and I like the contrast between the sticky filling and Hopkinson and Bareham's crisp savoury pastry. Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham use a plain lard and butter version in The Prawn Cocktail Years Mary Norwak simply specifies 'shortcrust pastry' in her English Puddings Sweet and Savoury Jersey chef Shaun Rankin makes an enriched pastry with eggs, icing sugar and ground almonds on the Great British Chefs website Mark Hix goes for a sweet version with double cream in British Regional Food and Annie Bell adds eggs and caster sugar in her Baking Bible. Shortcrust is the only choice for treacle tart, but I come across a real range.
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