You know your recipe is winner when your fussy eater husband says “I’m so glad I married you” after taking one bite of your dish.
This is my take on the English treacle tart and this was born on a day when I was racking my brain about how to use up all that leftover bread. The new household does not have any pets (yes I know, even I am not sure how one can live like that) so there is bound to be an abundance of stale bread every once in a while. For me, food waste is something that makes my eyes twitch and wring my hands in pure exasperation as it is physically painful for me to watch all that food go to waste. So while I was thinking about how I can use up this bread (I make this amazing bread pudding all too often and I wanted to make something new) when I came up with this.
One part of the world is suffering from the lack of food while the other part is freely wasting it away. Dialog needs to be initiated with regards to this horrendous waste and to figure out a way to balance the excess with the lack of it and fellow blogger Dini from Flavour Bender has initiated a movement to support “Action against Hunger” right throughout the month of August.
I don’t think any of us reading this are familiar with malnutrition. The feeling of not knowing when you will next get to eat, going thirsty for days due to the inability to find clean water for consumption, watching family members suffering and eventually dying due to the lack of proper nutrition – for people coming from comfortable lives, this is not easy to imagine. And it was by accident that I stumbled across The Flavour Bender and her revolution against world hunger through for For Food against Hunger. And before I knew it, my excitement has gotten the better of me and here I am lobbying for the cause.
If you would like to find out more about what the work of Action against Hunger over to Action Against Hunger, head over to this page for more details. And, should you wish to, you can make a donation directly here.
I consider this recipe as my protest against food wastage, a revolution in the making if it may. As is my Sri Lankan bread pudding some months back which is also something I make when there’s stale bread around.
A combination of flavours that are very Sri Lankan, this is a delicious recipe that is best served warm. Add to it the fact that it is made from ingredients that are either lying around in the house or are going to waste anyway, this is definitely a treat that can be whipped up for a quick dessert.
- Yield: 6 servings
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
Sri Lankan Treacle Tart
Ingredients
- Bread - 10 slices
- Jaggery - 150g, grated (you can substitute dark brown sugar for this)
- Treacle - 100ml
- Butter - 80g
- Milk - 300ml
- Eggs - 4
- Raisins - 1/3 cup
- Cinnamon - 2 tsps, powdered
- Clove - 1 tsps, powdered
- Nutmeg - ½ tsp, powdered
- Ginger - 1 tsp, fresh, grated
- Salt - A pinch
Instructions
- Break the bread into small pieces. Oven until dry and crumbly.
- Melt the butter and the jaggery in a pan with the milk. Add to this the treacle, the ginger and the spices. Simmer on low heat until it thickens slightly while stirring constantly. Leave the mixture to cool.
- Beat the eggs separately. Combine with the treacle mixture.
- In an oven proof dish, loosely pack the oven-dried bread morsels. Pour the treacle mixture over it in a way the liquid covers all the bread.
- Bake at a moderate heat for about 20 minutes or until the dish is no longer runny and the bread has nicely crusted up.
- Serve warm by itself or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!
This is potential air freshner. As it bakes, that caramelly smell of browning treacle mingled with that sensual warmth of cinnamon, the clove and the nutmeg permeates through the house and people will be crowding your kitchen to see what’s cooking even before it is ready to come out of the oven!
The squishy, velvety sweetness as you take your first warm bite is always goose bump inducing. The crust is nice and crisp providing a lovely contrast to the moist juiciness in the middle, crunchy and moist at the same time. This is spoonful after spoonful of treacly goodness – caramelized to perfection, the nutmeg cuts through thick, sweetness with its firm and pungent presence while the treacly goodness is further punctuated with the not-so-coy clove. The fragrant and exotic cinnamon then envelops it all and complements the plushness of it all with an elaborate dance from faraway lands.
Bread? What bread? You will never even know there’s bread in there.
Really, why waste food when you can make such wonderful things out of them?
Baking tips
- The treacle tends to burn soon, so watch the dessert carefully so as to not let it burn.
- You can avoid the treacle altogether but make sure you increase the amount of milk and jaggery at least by 10% to ensure proper sweetness.
