As the nights turn in and the weather cools, you'll be needing some comfort food. And nothing ticks that box better than treacle tart.
This particular treacle tart isn’t just any old treacle tart: it’s an award-winning version of what is a truly classic and quintessentially English dessert.
The creator of this recipe is Shaun Rankin, a high-profile, Michelin star-winning chef whose latest restaurant is Shaun Rankin at Grantley Hall near Ripon, North Yorkshire. And the treacle tart has a pedigree as fine as that of its creator: he served it up as the winning dish in BBC Two’s 2009 series of the Great British Menu.
The recipe hasn’t been shared before, until now — and if you want to try it as cooked by the man himself, it’s also one of the desserts on the Sunday lunch menu at Grantley Hall.
Recipe: Treacle Tart
Ingredients
For the pastry
- 260g plain flour
- 100g icing sugar
- 30g ground almonds
- 125g unsalted butter, diced
- 3 eggs
- plain flour for dusting
- 1 tsp milk
For the treacle tart filling
- 60g unsalted butter
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 3 tbsp double cream
- 6g salt
- 450g golden syrup
- 120g brown breadcrumbs
To serve
- 250g raspberries
- Half a lemon, juiced
- 1 tsp icing sugar
- black pepper
- 225g clotted cream
Method
The pastry
Start by making the pastry. Put the flour, sugar, almonds and butter in a large bowl. Using your fingertips, mix together into a crumb consistency. Add 2 of the eggs and mix well.
Cover and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180ºC/Gas mark 4.
Lightly dust a work surface with flour. Roll out the pastry to about 2mm thick.
Line the tart ring with the pastry, letting it hang over the sides. Cover with oven-proof cling film and fill the tart base with dry rice or baking beans.
Bake blind for about 20 minutes or until the case is cooked through and lightly golden. Remove from oven and lift off the rice or baking beans and the cling film.
Mix the egg and milk in a small bowl. Using a pastry brush, egg wash the tart well and return to the oven for a further 3 minutes.
Remove from the oven and set aside. Reduce the oven temperature to 160ºC/Gas mark 3.
The filling
For the filling, melt the butter in a saucepan until it starts to foam and turn brown, then take off the heat. Pour the butter through a sieve to remove the sediment.
Mix the egg, egg yolk, cream and salt in a bowl.
In a saucepan heat the golden syrup gently for a few minutes until hot.
Add the brown butter and mix well until it goes cloudy. Then add the cream mixture and the breadcrumbs. Mix well then pour the mixture into the cooked tart base.
Cook in the oven for 25 minutes then reduce the temperature to 140ºC/Gas mark 1 and cook for a further 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool, so the top is chewy and the middle is be soft and moist with the pastry nice and crunchy.
To serve
When you are ready to serve your treacle tart, put the raspberries into a bowl and add the lemon juice and icing sugar. Mix well and finish with pepper to taste.
Cut the tart into portions, scatter with the dressed raspberries and serve with a scoop of the clotted cream.
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