When I first moved out of London to live in the countryside, it took me a while to feel at home. For the first few weeks I felt very out of sorts. ‘Bake a cake,’ my partner said, not remotely altruistically since I had not made any homemade goods since we’d moved in. So I did. The first thing I made was that most English of tea time treats, a Bakewell tart. I make a really good Bakewell tart, from a recipe found long, long ago and never bettered. And it worked, I felt at home.
I thought of this as I opened a bar, a big bruiser of a bar, by Fatso (I really can’t decide if I love or loathe this name – my two Gen Z babies cannot believe such a name is acceptable). Anyway, the new bar they’ve just launched is called Sweet Tart, £6.75 and I really liked it. Not in a I-could-eat-a-whole-half-a-bar but in a one-piece-is-lovely-thank-you way. (I feel I need to point out it also has coconut in it which I couldn’t really taste but gave a nice mouth feel to the proceedings.)
It’s dark chocolate, but not too dark at 60% and it has shortbread pieces with cherry and almond in it.
Talking of coconut, I also sampled some delicious 85% chocolate-drizzled Coconut Macaroons by Pump Street, £1.95 each (only available in store or as part of the Pastry Box online). Coconut macaroons remind me of my mother-in-law, who made them on rice paper (do we not use rice paper any more with the advent of baking parchment and nonstick trays?) and are another quintessential English treat.
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