Treacle Tart

There's a particular kind of January evening when the rain has been at the windows for hours and the only honest thing to do is bake. Not a project. Not a centrepiece. Something old and sweet and uncomplicated that smells of golden syrup and warm pastry and makes the whole house feel half a degree warmer than the thermometer says.

Treacle tart isn't really treacle at all. It's golden syrup, soaked into fresh breadcrumbs, lifted with the zest of two lemons so it doesn't turn cloying. That lemon is the whole secret. Without it, the filling is just sweet. With it, the filling has a brightness that cuts through and makes you want a second slice. The Victorians worked this out and the recipe has barely changed since, because there was nothing left to fix.

I make this most often in the deep middle of winter, when there's nothing in the garden and the market is quiet and the kitchen needs a reason to be on. A bag of flour, a tin of golden syrup, the heel of yesterday's loaf, two lemons from the bowl. That's the whole shopping list. We're only making dinner, and afterwards, we're making this.

I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: "Treacle tart. Cold rain. Cream from a jug. Enough." I haven't needed to revise the entry.