Tuesday. 9:30am. Phone rings. I answer: Hello?

Caller: I’m afraid your cows are having breakfast in my garden.

Me: Silence

Caller: Can you please come for them?

Me: Of course…gosh, I’m terribly sorry…can I…ummm…offer you some milk for your trouble? 

Caller: See you soon.

Me: Righ

Caller: Click.

Me: t.

And, so are the days of our lives.

But, this post isn’t about cows breaking into other people’s gardens. Of course not. It is about a sweet gooey classic Irish pastry. The more I research traditional recipes that originated in either Ireland or the UK, I am struck by the dimension of flavour that can be achieved with the simplest of ingredients. I like to imagine how some of these historic recipes may have been created. Close your eyes and picture a merry young woman in a pretty pinafore while standing in a kitchen circa 1800s. Or, if it’s easier, perhaps she looks a bit like Miss Patmore from Downton Abbey. She stands staring at a loaf of bread, a basket of eggs, some flour, sugar and jam, like a Master Chef contestant trying to crack what she can create for pudding that night. She decides to meringue the egg whites, crumble the bread and open the jar of freshly potted raspberry jam, and voila, she appoints a beguiling “Queen of Puddings!” The following week, she uses more breadcrumbs and a tin of golden syrup to make a treacle tart. For more variety, she swaps some black treacle from a neighbouring farm to make her treacle tart even darker and richer…macabre, if you  will.  Many years later, if she’s American, she’ll add a drop of bourbon to it…just for good measure.

Treacle tart is basically bread crumbs soaked with golden syrup and/or black treacle (molasses), poured into a sweet pastry case and baked. Apparently, Shoo-Fly pie from the American south was derived from treacle tart. We like to nibble on fingers of it while sipping a cup of strong espresso with a lemon twist. It’s very rich. And, with the black treacle, black licorice notes come through. The bourbon doesn’t make it boozy, it just knocks the sweetness back a bit. Geoffrey prefers the golden-syrup-only version as does Harry Potter.

I was inspired to make this treacle tart by a letter I received from an Irish Country Living reader. She spoke of a treacle cake that I must have mentioned in my column, but could not recall. It could have been my description of the hijinks that ensued when I attempted a steamed pudding made with golden syrup, which came out a bit lopsided (to be conservative). I never did send her a recipe, but I am sharing here and will send her this recipe as well. Here’s hoping she will like it. And hopefully you will too.

Here goes:

Bourbon Treacle Tart

Ingredients

Sweet pastry of your choosing

300g golden syrup (you can order from Amazon or other online retailers)

50g dark treacle (sub molasses)

25g Kentucky bourbon (I use Buffalo Trace, but any bourbon will do the trick)

150g fresh bread crumbs (whatever you have around)

zest of 1 lemon

a pinch of salt

Method

Heat the oven to 160°c.

On a floured work surface, roll out the pastry to a thickness of about ½cm.

Line a 20cm flan ring or flan tin with a detachable base with the pastry.

Line the inside of the pastry with greaseproof paper, then fill the greaseproof paper with baking beans or rice, making sure they are into the corners, and put it into the oven for 20 minutes.

While the pastry is baking, put the golden syrup and treacle into a pan over a medium-low heat and warm it for about 3 minutes, until it becomes runny and easily pourable.

Add the rest of the ingredients for the filling to the syrup and stir them in.

When the pastry has baked, remove it from the oven, take out the greaseproof paper containing the baking beans and allow it to rest until it is cool enough to handle.

Pour in the filling mixture.

Put the tart back into the oven for 15 minutes.

Remove the tart from the oven and allow it to rest for 10 minutes before removing it from the flan ring or tin.

Cut into portions and serve.

A dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream is lovely with this…or just a strong coffee with a twist.

The winner of Catherine Fulvio’s Eat Like An Italian is:  Emily O’ Regan. Congratulations Emily! Please email your mailing address to imen.producer@ireland.com. Thanks to all who left a comment, Catherine’s book is well worth the asking price and is available at Eason’s and on Amazon.com.

Slan Abhaile

Imen

Photos and styling by Imen McDonnell 2012

 

 

 

 

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