Welcome back to winter, everyone. As we head back into the UK’s native time zone, it’s time for another weekend recipe but, I’m going to be honest with you, this one was a little bit rushed.
Between being ill and all my foreign friends returning to the country (quite possibly related occurrences), I’ve had very little time to perfect this month’s warming pudding and I may well come back to do so later. Yet I’m not exactly unhappy with how it turned out.
These treacle tarts are sweet, caramel-y and filled with the autumnal taste of toasted habanero fragments. Not exactly a pumpkin-like squash but a distinctive, strong overtone of savoury orange fruit all the same. And a high
3.5/10
Heat
once the namesake treacle flavour fades away.
To make your own tarts, you will need:
250g plain flour
125g butter (+more to grease)
1 egg
400g golden syrup
70g fine white breadcrumbs (or one crusty slice of bread)
2 orange habaneros
And, to get started, you’ll want to ensure that that butter’s cold, so that you can cube it up finely without it melting. Then use clean, dry hands to rub those cubes into your flour, until a crumb-like texture is reached.
Then beat in your egg, along with two tablespoons of water, and kneed the results to an even, rollable consistency.
From there, cover and refrigerate the dough for at least half an hour. You already know why if you’ve read my biscuit posts. Time in which you should probably make sure that the breadcrumbs are ready to go.
Because I don’t know about you but I don’t just have breadcrumbs lying around. I had to make mine from the last remaining crust of a stale white loaf of bread – By drying it further on my oven’s lowest setting and then shoving it in a blender until it neared dust. Simple, yet satisfying.
When both that and the dough are ready to go, roll out the second of those on a smooth, flat, floured surface, to a little over half a centimetre in thickness and cut it to fit whatever baking tray you’re using.
For mine, I made four tarts – Each ten centimetres in diameter – but I actually had enough pastry and filling for six. Or you could make a single twenty five centimetre version. Just don’t fill yours all the way, like I did, or they’ll overflow in the oven and leave burnt on caramel for you to clean.
Grease your tin with the extra butter mentioned in my ingredients list, then lay the pre-cut pastry into place, trimming any edges if you need.
Mix together your golden syrup, breadcrumbs and finely sliced, deseeded habaneros for the filling and add that in, as well.
Then, finally, bake for thirty minutes for a firm, yet slightly gooey treacle tart, sure to satisfy, if you like it hot.
For a spur of the moment recipe, today’s is not half bad and its taste is perfect for the cold coming months and the holidays ahead – Both halloween and bonfire night. Well worth replicating, even if a little refinement could still be of benefit.
Spicefreak 