Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Trialling Tarts

Sylvia and I have a dream.

The perfect treacle tart.

The dream began a few weeks ago, when we discussed the sublime treacle tart of our fevered imaginings. Golden, sticky, oozing filling in a light pastry case. We meticulously planned the evening of the baking and eating of the tart of dreams. We found a recipe, we bought ingredients, we measured and stirred and baked.

But it was all a lie, and we were heartbroken. The tart was not as good as we wanted. As we needed.

I've been mulling over the imperfections in our tart over the last few weeks, and after a read of what our Heston and some others have to say, I made some changes to the original - increasing the amount of filling, bringing the syrup content up to twice the bread content, adding an egg and some cream, plus a touch of nutmeg as well as ginger. I stuck to our original choice of a shortbread pastry base, because it was the only good thing about the original tart.

And this time? Oh, it was perfect. Utterly sticky syrupy deliciousness in a shortbread pastry case.

Sadly, it was eaten too fast for a picture, a la missbliss, but I promise that next time, there will be. Somehow, I don't think it'll be too long until the next time.

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