What is a butter tart: it is a pastry filled with raisins, brown sugar, and butter and it is consumed in a few ooey, gooey, and chewy bites. You will find these little treats all across Canada. Some butter tarts are better than others. My mother's-THE BEST.
She'd start with her home made pastry dough, then she would prepare her raisins. Prepare raisins? Yep, raisins need a little plumping. To do this you simply pour boiling water over the raisins and let them sit until you are ready to use them. Sometimes, my mum would use currants. I also remember my Grandma Mitchell using currants. Yuck. Currants belong in the water.
I want my butter tarts to have a dark golden brown caramelized sugar top. To get the best top to her butter tarts, my mother insisted on starting with a hot oven-400 degrees.
The problem with butter tarts is, there are some bad ones out there. I avoid the ones that are larger than a few bites, or too tall, you shouldn't have to open wide. I don't care for the ones that are light brown on top, or are made with corn syrup or contain nuts. Sometimes you don't know a bad butter tart until you bite down into it. A good butter tart should crumble and be a little messy to eat.
Well, now if you have never tried a butter tart, you are thinking it's just a raisin tart-No-No-No. It is so much more.
Here are Peggy's Butter Tarts. Camp Keith tested and loved.
Pastry for 12 tarts
1 egg
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
1 tsp vanilla (omit if you soaked your raisins in booze)
2 tsp white vinegar
1/2 cup raisins
- Prepare raisins. Boil water and pour over the raisins, let sit. Or soak in dark rum or whiskey (not the good stuff) for 12 to 24 hours. Just enough that you don't waste too much booze. You don't need to cover, you can stir and add more if all the booze gets soaked up.
- Prepare pastry: line muffin tins with pastry. Pastry should go about half way up the tin.
- Beat the eggs, add the sugar, butter and vanilla. Beat together until foamy/frothy.
- Drain the raisins and add to the sugar mixture.
- Pour into unbaked tart shells until 2/3 full
- Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes and then turn oven to 350 degrees and cook for ten more minutes.
- Remove from oven, cool ten minutes. Then run a knife around the edge.
- Wait a couple of more minutes, move tarts from pan onto cooling rack.
- Here is the hard part, let them sit for a couple of hours before enjoying. If you have any left store in a cool dry place.
Okay my confession, I cannot make pastry dough. My mother's pastry would never fail, mine always fails. I've been told that my hands are too warm. To enjoy butter tarts in North Carolina I make...
Butter Tart Bars
Crust:
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup white sugar
3 tbls icing sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 tbsp cold butter
- Line an 8x8 or 9x9 (I have made this recipe in both and they both work) with parchment paper, so it is over hanging. You want to be able to use the paper as handles to get the bars out of the pan. Put a few smears of butter on the pan so the parchment paper sticks.
- Combine flour, sugars and salt. Cut butter into until you get pea size crumbles.
- Press base into pan. Cook at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, set oven to 400 degrees.
Topping:
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
3/4 to a cup of raisins (prepared: see above)
2 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla (omit if you soaked your raisins in booze)
- Combine the eggs and brown sugar; beat. You want this to be frothy. Add the vanilla, vinegar and butter. Drain the raisins and add.
- Pour over base, bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes and then 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes
Remove from oven, let the pan sit for ten minutes. Remove from the pan (use the paper as handles) and place on a cutting surface. Okay, here is one of the great parts about being the cook, butter tart paper. This is up there with the cheese paper from cheese burgers. While everyone else waits a couple of hours for the bars to set, the cook can steal all of these yummy yummy little pieces.
Cheers and Happy Canada Day,
Sue
