MAURA MCEVOY

Making a Treacle Ring

We were stumped. We had a recipe for treacle ring from Malta. It seemed clear enough. We tried it, struggling with a two-foot pastry snake, but we couldn't figure out the "pinching" part. Then we decided to do the obvious: We looked at the photos, and they told us just what to do. A picture was worth a thousand recipe steps.

1. Roll out two pastry rectangles, form the filling into two "sausages", and lay it into the pastry.

2. Shape the pastry around the filling and pinch it closed at 1" intervals.

3. Join the ends together to form a ring.

4. The result: a perfect treacle ring, ready for the oven.