Kreacher's Treacle Tart

Author: Rowling, J.K.
Book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Difficulty rating: Little Women
Deliciousness rating: Acceptable

'Master has not finished his soup, would Master prefer the savoury stew, or else the treacle tart to which Master is so partial?' (Book 7: UK 191, US 132)

Treacle tart is one of Harry's favorite "puddings," and it's #15 on the most common foods in the Harry Potter Food & Drink Index, sorted by frequency. Hogwarts seems to serve it fairly often; in fact, it's the first dessert that Harry has at Hogwarts.

Accio Treacle! Jenne got me this amazing apron, btw.

KREACHER'S TREACLE TART
Adapted from Felicity Cloake's recipe from The Guardian (Felicity Cloake! That totally sounds like a Harry Potter name.)

Ingredients:

• For the pastry
• Use Trader Joe's pie crust. Life is short. Don't make pie crust unless it's Pi(e) Day.
• Egg, beaten with a little water for egg wash
• For the filling
• 60g browned butter
• 400g golden syrup
• 35g treacle
• 2 tbsp double cream
• 1 egg 
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 140g fresh white breadcrumbs

Directions:

1. Brown the butter. (For detailed instructions on how to brown butter, please check out this post.)

2. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line the pan with pie dough, and prick the base in several places with a fork. Put a large sheet of foil on top, weigh down with pulses (I did not know this use of the word "pulse" until I read this recipe) or rice, and blind bake for 15 minutes.

3. Remove the foil and beans, brush the base with the egg wash, and put back into the oven for five minutes, until golden.

4. Put the browned butter, treacle, and syrup in a saucepan and heat until warm.

This is treacle poured into golden syrup. Trippy-looking.

5. Stir in the cream and take off the heat. Let it cool off a just a little so it's not super-hot, and then beat in the egg, yolk, lemon juice and salt to taste.

5. Tip the breadcrumbs into the pastry case and spread out evenly. Pour over the syrup mixture, making sure there are no dry patches, then carefully put back in the oven for 20 minutes.

Did it measure up?
It was not as delicious as we'd hoped -- definitely not wonderful enough to be anyone's absolute favorite dessert. We're suspecting from experience with previous recipes that Felicity Cloake (despite her delightful name) might have opposite taste in food from us.

If we were to try this again, we'd take out the black treacle and only use golden syrup, and we'd calm down on the lemon.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. London: Bloomsbury, 2007.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2007.