Well, I tick only one of those boxes, but certainly have the capacity to be a good friend. A bit of an egotistical presumption, you might think, but after all, I do make my friends cakes like these all the time...
How to make this Treacle Tart...
Ingredients:
170g plain flour
80g butter
two or three tablespoons of black treacle
80g butter again
a couple of tablespoons of margerine
lemon juice
ground ginger
two slices of soft bread, or six-ish digestive biscuits crumbed finely. or a mixture of the two
a generous scattering of sugar (brown is best)
Rub the butter (cold, diced) into the flour until the mixture is fine crumbs, and gradually add small dashes of cold water till a stiff dough is formed. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for half an hour.
The given amount of pastry will fill five or six one-portion-sized loose-bottomed tart tins. Lightly grease them, roll out the pastry and fill the tins to the edges, aiming for even coverage, it must be thick enough to be opaque or the crust could break after cooking.
Pop back in the fridge to chill another twenty minutes.
Warm the butter and treacle in a pan on a low heat, add the margerine, sugar and bread/biscuit crumbs. Flavour with a few dashes of lemon juice and a sprinkling of ground ginger, tasting as you go along to see if you want more in.
Pour this mixture into the unbaked pastry cases, then bake on gas 6 for 15 minutes, after which its best to turn the oven down to gas 4 for a further 15-20 mins.
Allow to cool before eating..
And now I'll take a slice of it up to my house-mate; never mind Aristotle, that's a good friendship.
