Grapefruit & Treacle Tart My Cotswold Kitchen

Grapefruit & Treacle Tart

Prep time: 1.5hrs, including chill time
Cooking time: 45 mins

SERVES 12

Ingredients:

  • 3 pink grapefruit
  • 3 large eggs
  • 450g golden syrup
  • 50ml double cream
  • 100g coarse fresh white breadcrumbs
  • 2 tbsp caster sugar

For the pastry

  • 140g cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
  • 250g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
  • A pinch of salt 
  • 2 large egg yolks
  • 2-3 tbsp iced water

Method:

  1. To make the pastry, put the butter, flour and salt in a large mixing bowl and rub the butter into the flour lightly using your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Use a butter knife to mix in the egg yolks and enough water to bring it together to a crumbly dough – it should only just hold together. Wrap the dough in cling film, and chill it in the fridge for at least 1 hour, until firm.
  2. Finely grate the zest of one grapefruit, Cut the fruit in half and extract the juice. Put the juice and zest into a saucepan and boil rapidly until the juice has reduced by about two thirds and has become syrupy.
  3. Peel and segment the other two grapefruits, removing all pith and pat dry with kitchen paper. 
  4. To make the filling, whisk the eggs in a medium bowl until yolks and whites are smoothly combined, then add the golden syrup, cream, reduced grapefruit juice and zest, and the breadcrumbs. Stir vigorously to combine. 
  5. Heat the oven to 190oC/ fan 170oC/ gas 5. Place a baking sheet in the oven to heat up. Grease a 24cm loose bottomed flan tin. 
  6. Unwrap the pastry and roll it out as thinly as you can on a flour-dusted surface, ideally to a thickness of only 1mm. Line the greased tin with the pastry, then put it in the freezer for 20 minutes to chill.
  7. Trim the excess pastry from the top of the pastry case, then fill it with treacle mixture. Put it directly onto the pre-heated baking sheet in the oven. Bake in the middle of the oven for 40-50 minutes, covering it with foil towards the end of cooking if it is browning too much on top.
  8. Arrange the dried grapefruit segments on a baking tray, sprinkle each segment with caster sugar and blowtorch until lightly caramelise
  9. Once cool enough to handle, arrange the fresh grapefruit segments on top of the tart.