Treacle tart

I am a firm advocate of the old adage, a little of what you fancy does you good.  Too often we are made to feel guilty about what we eat; I listened to an excellent podcast of a conversation between Diana Henry and Ruby Tandoh and was struck by the sheer joy someone got from finally feeling that they could eat a doughnut in public!
We have been made to feel like pariahs for enjoying our food, whatever it is, for too long and I rejoice that the fad for so called clean eating does seem to be on the decline - the myths debunked and the pseudo science shown up as what Anthony Warner has dubbed "nutri-bollocks".  It is time for intelligent discourse, education and understanding and goodbye to knee jerk reactions (sugar tax) and the unthinking embrace of Instagram ideologies.

A little of this treacle and nut tart is all you need to feel good; it contains gluten, dairy, nuts and a ton of calories and boy, do they taste good!

Felicity Cloake has written rapturously and with far more research than me on this topic and her recipe does sound delicious.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/feb/13/how-to-cook-perfect-treacle-tart 

It is not an everyday dessert and it is also old fashioned; one of those nostalgic memories of puddings past that people like Jeremy Lee and Fergus Henderson have been reviving - as seen mentioned in this month's BBC Good Food magazine.
But every once in a while, this gooey, sweet delight will stick crumbs and smiles to your lips.

Start by making some shortcrust pastry with 120g plain flour and 60g butter.
Roll out and line a 10¼" shallow prospector pan.

Place in the fridge while the oven heats up to 200ºC
Put the pan into the pre-heated oven and cook the pastry case for no more than 10 minutes.

Turn the oven down to 170ºC

Coarsely chop 50g of mixed nuts (or just use your favourite).
Weigh out 80g of sourdough bread, crusts removed, and process into crumbs.
Grate the rinds of 2 oranges
Put 300g of golden syrup in a large saucepan and heat gently until runny.
Stir in the breadcrumbs, nuts and orange zest and mix thoroughly.

Pour this mixture into the pastry case and spread evenly.
Put the pan back into the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

When you remove the tart from the oven, the filling will be bubbling like lava on the rim of Vesuvius, so take care.
Allow to cool and serve at room temperature with custard or clotted cream.

Serves 8

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