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 is becomes dry.
Enjoy!
Grammy’s Butter Tarts
Print recipe| Serves | 18 |
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 6 Tbsp soft butter
- 1 Tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup golden or sultana raisins (soaked in warm water for 10 minutes and then drained)
- 1/2 cup white corn syrup
- 2 eggs (beaten)
- 2 Tsp lemon juice
- 2 Tsp water
Directions
| Pastry | |
| Make 1 lot of pastry using the Crisco 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. | |
| Filling | |
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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 order given. Spoon ¾ full in pastry lined tart tins.  | |
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Bake 400 °F in 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.  | |
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Cool in the tins. When cool, remove to a serving plate.  | |
Crisco Pastry
| Serves | enough for a double-crust pie |
Ingredients
- 2 Cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 Tsp salt
- 1 cup Crisco shortening
- 4 Tbsp water
Directions
| Measure the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. Add the shortening and cut it in using a pastry cutter or two knive 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 counter 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. | |