My next bake is so British I couldn’t even get all my ingredients at the super market, I had to order one ingredient online! You might recall this dessert mentioned in Harry Potter… Treacle Tart! I had no idea what to expect from this, let alone the taste.

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Treacle Tart is actually a super easy, yummy recipe that I will turn to if I need to make a dessert on the fly. I even keep Golden Syrup stocked in my cabinet now just for it. The taste is lemony and sweet, and the consistency is mushy and delicious.

I used Mary Berry’s treacle tart recipe from the BBC website. This is the recipe they used on the Great British Baking Show during a technical challenge.

Treacle Tart Ingredients

Name: Mary Berry's Treacle Tart
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 30 min
Ingredients: 1⅔ Cup All-Purpose Flour; 10 Tbsp Dairy Free Butter, cubed; 3 Tbsp Cold Water; 1 Can (454g) Golden Syrup; Half Loaf of White Sandwich Bread (About 9 Slices)*; 2 Lemons, zest & juice; 1 Egg (for egg wash)*

This recipe requires minimal ingredients which means you barely need to buy anything! You should have most of what you need. The only thing you may need to buy is Golden Syrup. If you don’t see it in the international section of your local supermarket, you can buy it on Amazon.

Golden Syrup is in between corn syrup and molasses. There’s not really a substitute for it since it is one of the main ingredients of the recipe so make sure to get your hands on some!

Here’s all the ingredients you’ll need for treacle tart:

All-Purpose Flour
Butter
Cold Water
Golden Syrup

White Sandwich Bread
Lemon Zest
Lemon Juice
Egg

Make the Crust

The crust needs to chill in the refrigerator for some time so it is better to make it first, that way you can make the filling while the crust is chilling. In a large bowl, cut the flour into the butter. You can do this with one of those fancy pastry tools or just use your hands to cover the butter in flour and kind of smush it together until it has a crumbly texture.

Then add the cold water and form the dough into a ball. You might need a tiny bit more water if your dough isn’t sticking together, but the dough should not be wet! Once it’s in a ball shape, wrap it in siran wrap and stick it in the fridge for about 20 minutes or so. While the crust is chilling you can prep the filling ingredients.

Make the Filling

All the filling requires is sandwich bread, lemon juice, lemon zest, and golden syrup. That’s it! So to prep the ingredients, you’ll need to grate the lemons on a microplane for the zest and then juice them. For the bread, you need to cut off the crusts and blitz the slices in a food processor to make crumbs. Make sure not to make the crumbs too tiny.

Then it’s all thrown into a pan on the oven and heated up for a few minutes until the golden syrup is liquidy, but not boiling.

BUT, before you heat up the filling, you should roll out your crust and fit it into your tin. Then using the rest, roll it out and cut the strips for a lattice top so you’re crust is ready for the filling to be poured into.

I use a glass pie dish for my tart because I don’t have a big tart tin. Use what you got.

Lattice Crust & Bake

For those of you who haven’t made a lattice crust before, it’s fairly simple once you get the hang of it. You just have to cut about 8-10 strips a little longer than your pie. Then you weave them together over the top of the pie. The video below might help you if you need a visual component.

Once the filling has been heated over the stove top, pour it into your crust and then immediately make the lattice on top. If you have leftover crust dough, you can decorate it too like I did with hearts. Then you just have to egg wash the top and bake until its golden brown.

You have to let the tart cool after it comes out of the oven for 10-15 minutes, so the filling can set. It’s super delicious warm or cold. I’ve brought it into work before and everyone loved it.

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You could also try out this classic french dessert Apple Tarte Tatin. I make my version with pears and marzipan.

Archive Dive!

Mary Berry's Treacle Tart

With Love, Melissa. Mary Berry's Recipe

A yummy British dessert made with golden syrup. Can be made vegan!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 30 mins

Cook Time 30 mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine British

Servings 8 Slices

Ingredients

Shortcrust Pastry

1⅔ Cup All-Purpose Flour
10 Tbsp Dairy Free Butter, cubed
3 Tbsp Cold Water

Filling

1 Can (454g) Golden Syrup
Half Loaf of White Sandwich Bread (About 9 Slices)*
2 Lemons, zest & juice
1 Egg (for egg wash)*

Instructions

Make shortcrust pastry for crust first. With hands, smush butter into flour until it's all combined and crumbly. It should stick together if you squish the mixture in your fist. Add the cold water and form into a ball. The mixture should hold together. If it's still crumbly, add a little more water. Wrap in siran wrap and stick in fridge to rest for about 20 minutes.
In the meantime, zest and juice the lemons. Then cut the crust off your bread and blend into small crumbs in a food processor. Open the can of golden syrup. Place all ingredients by the stove top and take out a large skillet.
Go back to your dough. Cut about 1/3 off and set aside. Roll out the rest nice and thin. Line the dough in a 8inch tart tin, or pie dish. Prick the bottom with a fork. Cut the remainder of the dough off the edges and add to the dough you set aside. Roll out remainder of dough and cut into even 1/2 inch strips.
Preheat your oven to 400°F and go back to the stove top. Heat up your golden syrup until it starts to feel thinner on medium-low heat, but do not bring to a boil. Add the breadcrumbs, lemon zest and juice and mix all together. Take off heat once combined and pour into your prepared dish with the crust in it.
Interweave in a lattice pattern on top of the treacle filling. Cut the extra edges off. Egg wash top, but be careful to not get egg wash on the filling, only on the lattice crust.
Bake in oven for 10 minutes, then decrease the temp to 350°F and bake another 25-30 minutes. Crust should be nice and golden. Let cool a bit so the filling can set. Serve warm or cold.

Notes

*Vegan Option: If you want to make this vegan, make sure the sandwich bread you're buying is vegan. Also instead of doing an egg wash, you can brush on some milk to the crust.

Keyword Dairy-Free, Golden Syrup, Treacle