The Butter Tart is the quintessential Canadian dessert, with a winning combination of butter, raisins, sugar, egg and corn syrup.
South of the border, you do not see the Butter Tart, but in a similar vein their dessert is the Pecan Pie. The butter tart is different from Pecan Pie in that it has a “runnier” filling, as there is no cornstarch in Butter Tarts.
Canadian Butter Tarts are as different as the cooks that make them, but I think you will have to agree that my Mom (Grammy) has a prize winning recipe.
The key according to her is to cook the butter tarts until the centres puff and just barely turn golden brown. Your goal is to have a centre that is runny and if you cook them too long, the centre becomes dry.
Enjoy!
Grammy’s Butter Tarts
A Canadian favourite!
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 6 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup raisins - soaked in hot water for 10 minutes and then drained
- 1/2 cup white corn syrup
- 2 eggs - beaten
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 2 tsp water
Instructions
- Make 1 lot of pastry using the Crisco recipe (below) or your favourite pastry recipe. Roll out the pastry and cut a circle about 1/4 inch larger than the top of the tart tin. If using a muffin tin, cut the circle about 1/2 inch larger all around than the muffin top, since muffin tins are deeper. Carefully lay the pastry over top and gently push it in and up the sides.
- Drain the raisins and drop 5 or 6 into the bottom of each tart shell. This ensures that each tart will have the same number of raisins. Combine the rest of the ingredients in the order given. Spoon pastry lined tart tins three-quarters full.
- Bake at 400F (200C) in a preheated oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until the tops puff and turn a golden brown. Remove immediately. When you remove them from the oven, run a knife along the inside of the tart tin to loosen any butter that might have leaked into the tin.
- Cool in the tins. When cool, remove to a serving plate.
Pastry (Shortening)
Ingredients
- 2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup vegetable shortening - typically Crisco
- 4 tbsp water - cold
Instructions
- Measure the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. Add the shortening and cut it in using a pastry cutter or two knives, cutting together until the flour/shortening mixture resembles pea sized pieces
- Mix in the water and stir with a fork, just until all the ingredients are clinging together. Do not over mix or the pastry will be tough.
- Flour the top of your rolling surface and around the sides of your rolling pin. Draw together about 1/2 of the pastry mixture and liberally sprinkle with flour. Pat into a circle about an inch thick and then roll it out to about 1/4 of an inch thick.
- At this stage, you can either cut the dough into circles to fit into tart tins or use this half of the recipe to fill the bottom of a 8 – 10 inch pie plate. If you are making tarts, you can probably re-roll the scraps one or two more times and then the remaining pastry will be too tough to work with. Repeat with the second half of the pastry.
- Pastry needs to be baked at a high temperature (400 deg F) for at least 10 minutes for pies that are then reduced to about 350 deg F until the filling is cooked or for tarts you may continue to cook at 400 deg F for about another 5 minutes to cook the centre and finish the cooking of the pastry.