Reader’s Digest(ibles): Mini Treacle Tarts

In yet another dessert for my daughter’s Hogwarts birthday party, I decided to make miniature treacle tarts– treacle tarts are not only quintessentially British, but the first dessert that Harry eats at Hogwarts!

A moment later the desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding…
As Harry helped himself to a treacle tart, the talk turned to their families.

-Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

These are made with a pate sucrée crust and a slightly non-standard filling– the recipe I used had a bit more cream in it than most other recipes I saw later (oops!), which I expect made it less gooey and more custardy in texture than is usual. Also I did have extra filling, which I baked in two small ramekins and enjoyed later with berries on top. Enjoy!

Mini Treacle Tarts (makes 24)

Crust

• 8oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 2 egg yolks

• Cream butter and sugar together until smooth and creamy.
• Add salt and flour and mix until sandy-looking.
• Add egg yolks and continue to mix until the dough starts to come together into crumbles.
• Use your hands to gather the dough together into a lump, then flatten it into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill at least 30 minutes.

Treacle Filling

• 200g golden syrup
• 40g fresh breadcrumbs
• 30g almond flour
• 1/2 egg, beaten
• 50 ml heavy cream
• zest and juice of 1/2 lemon

• Combine all ingredients until smooth. If necessary, blitz it a bit in a food processor or blender to smooth it out properly.
• Chill overnight.

When ready to bake:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Remove filling from refrigerator to warm up a bit.
• Divide pate sucrée into 24 pieces and press into the wells of a mini-muffin pan. I’ve found that the easiest way to do this is to roll it into equal-sized balls and press it in with a wooden tart tamper. It makes the whole process so fast and simple!

• Prick bottoms of the crusts with a fork.
• Bake for 10 minutes, until pale golden. Crusts will puff, but that’s okay– tamp them down again with your tart tamper (or a spoon).
• Spoon filling into par-baked crusts (do not overfill!), then return to the oven to bake for another 10 minutes, until crust is golden-brown and filling is only slightly jiggly.

• Let cool until just warm (filling will deflate a little), then remove and serve. I found that the tarts around the edges released more easily than the ones in the center of the pan– probably something to do with heat transfer– so keep that in mind. The center four tarts ended up basically falling apart before I could get them out properly, but they were still delicious!

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