Mini Shortbread Treacle Tarts

Well what a lovely recipe I have today, very simple and really quite delicious.

The story around the recipe is that I was searching for a recipe for mince pies, that I will be making in the next few days.  I saw one that claimed it was very easy.  However from reading the recipe I thought the pastry was more shortbread that shortcrust that you usually get for mince pies.  Some comments also indicated that the pastry was too crumbly to remove from the tin, so I decided that I should experiment, before I really needed it.

To that end I decided not to create mine pies, with a top, but I would use the pastry as the base of a tart, and fill it with something nice and easy.  I settled on a treacle tart.

The result was absolutely wonderful.  It came as a big surprise to me, the combination of shortbread and treacle with breadcrumbs and a little lemon really works very well indeed.

As the pastry is very short, and it has no water to help it bind together, the photo’s don’t show perfectly symmetrical tarts, but who cares about that?  Little home made tastes of pure delight don’t care how they look. 

• 180g plain flour
• 112g butter (cold)
• 50 grams caster sugar(I used golden caster sugar).

For the filling:

• 50g breadcrumbs
• 225g golden syrup
• 1tbsp lemon juice
• zest of one lemon

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200c/Gas 6
2. cube the cold butter and rub into the flour. 
3. Then add the sugar and mix that in, with rubbing motions.
4. Bring it together into a ball, squeezing it so that it stays together.
5. Divide into 12 portions, and create a ball of each portion. 
6. Use a 12 hole patty/bun tin( that is like a muffin tin but not so deep)
7. push one ball into each hole, spreading it out across the base and up the sides
8. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. 
9. Remove from the oven and reduce the heat to 180c/160c fan/Gas Mark 5
10. While the pastry is baking some prepare the filling
11. Mix the breadcrumbs and golden syrup together and stir in the lemon juice.
12. If the pastry has bubbled up gently press it down again, without making a hole in the base. It will be quite malleable as long as you do it quickly.
13. Fill each tart case to just below the rim, with the treacle filling
14. drop a little lemon zest on the top of each one
15. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the tart has firmed up.
16. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for a few minutes.
17. The shortbread crust should firm up nicely and then it will be easy to remove each tart from the tin.