Treacle Tart with Clotted Cream

Ingredients

• 250 g plain flour
• 3 tbsp cold water
• ¼ tsp salt
• 140 g unsalted butter, cold and diced
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 160 g fresh white breadcrumbs
• 25 g unsalted butter, melted
• 320 g golden syrup, warmed slightly
• 2 tsp lemon zest, finely grated
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 200 ml clotted cream, chilled

Method

1. Make the pastry: rub the cold diced butter into the flour with the salt until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs with no visible lumps of butter. Add the cold water a tablespoon at a time, bringing the dough together with a knife until it just clumps — stop the moment it holds. Flatten into a disc, wrap and chill for 20 minutes.
2. Roll the pastry out on a lightly floured surface to about 3 mm thick, then line a 23 cm fluted tart tin, pressing gently into the flutes. Trim the edges and chill the case for 10 minutes while you make the filling.
3. Heat the oven to 190°C fan. Warm the golden syrup gently in a pan until loose and pourable — about 1 minute — then stir in the breadcrumbs, lemon zest, lemon juice, beaten egg and melted butter. The mixture should look thick, glossy and spreadable, like wet golden sand.
4. Tip the filling into the chilled pastry case and smooth the top with the back of a spoon. Bake for 30–35 minutes until the pastry is deep golden and the filling has set with a faint wobble at the centre and a glossy, amber sheen on top.
5. Let the tart settle in its tin for 10 minutes — it will firm up as it cools — then ease it out onto a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature, cut into generous wedges, with a cold dollop of clotted cream collapsing into the sticky filling and a fine grating of lemon zest over the top.