Sweet little butter tarts are a quintessential Canadian treat. Little pastry shells filled with butter, syrup, egg, and vanilla. They’re also the topic of much disagreement about what exactly, if anything, should be added to these little pastries; some bakers add a little extra something. Raisins? Nuts? Be careful not to declare your preference too loudly when in the northern territories!

Everyone is happy

      When I was growing up, Mom made these little tarts during the holidays using the technique from her mother, a French-Canadian immigrant. All-butter crust of course, and ever the diplomat, she made some of hers plain and some with raisins or nuts. Because you make so many at a time, it is easy to give everyone their choice.

A trip on the sweet side

      But even as a child, they were not my favorite because they were so darn sweet! All that sugar and maple syrup. However, everyone else loved them, especially Mom who had quite a sweet tooth.

A few rules, but nothing etched in stone

      There are many ways to make these treats, although they all follow a basic formula. Hers were made with maple syrup of course, and some brown sugar as well. Some recipes use corn syrup, others add some cream to the mix. But always a butter crust, and always sweet.

A little trip away from tradition

My (sideways on the family tree) cousin Christopher, a Kentucky native, lived in Canada for a time (as well as here in Vermont!), and was drawn into the lure of the butter tart. He decided to make a batch this fall, but added his own special twists.

If you are from Kentucky, you’ll probably add some bourbon

     The recipe he began with was adapted from bakeschool.com. He added some spirits to the mix, flavorful Kentucky bourbon, just a bit to cut the sweet. He used two tablespoons which seemed like too much when he first sampled them, he said, I suspect still hot from the oven. However, as they cooled and mellowed, he reported that the two tablespoons were just about right.

Change the ration of dough to filling

These tarts are traditionally made in a 12-cup muffin tin or little tartlet pans, but Christopher decided to use a mini-muffin pan instead, reasoning that the crust-to-filling ratio would be much higher, thus cutting the sweet even more. It was certainly a good decision. Another way to cut the sweet is to sprinkle the tarts just out of the oven with a bit of flaked sea salt.

Did you say chocolate chips?

      For the purists, his heresy continued with the addition of the chocolate chips! While there is always the debate over raisins or no raisins, nuts or no nuts, chocolate chips are not usually even considered when these are baked, but it worked!

      When I made my batch recently, I used my mom’s filling (hers did not include cream), dried apricots, and a few with the chocolate chips. It’s all good!

Christopher’s Burbon Butter Tarts

Adapted from bakeschool.com

All-butter crust:

• 280 grams, scant 10 oz., unbleached all-purpose flour
• 10 mL granulated sugar, a couple of teaspoons
• Large pinch Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 155 grams, 11 tbsp., unsalted butter very cold, cut into small cubes, 
• 85 mL cold water, around 3 oz.

Tart filling:

• 80 grams, 6 tbsp., unsalted butter melted
• 200 grams, 1 cup, light brown sugar
• 30 mL, 1 ounce, whipping cream (35 % fat)
• 5 mL, 1 tsp., pure vanilla extract
• 1.25 mL, large pinch, Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 1 large egg
• ¼ cup mini chocolate chips (optional)
• 2 Tbsp. good Kentucky bourbon

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and sugar. Add the cubed cold butter to the bowl and toss it in the flour to coat it and, working quickly with your fingertips, rub handfuls of flour and butter together to work the butter into the flour until you get a mixture that has a coarse, sandy texture, with pieces of butter no larger chickpeas.

Sprinkle the mixture with the water. Work the liquid ingredients into the sandy mixture, whisking it in with the fork. Clean the fork with your hands and switch to working the dough with your hands, quickly kneading it all together until you get a smooth dough.

Split the dough into two; roll each into a log, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.

When you are ready to roll the dough, simply divide each log into 6 pieces, rolling each piece into a 4-inch circle roughly, using a rolling pin. Carefully work each disk into the well of a 12-cup muffin pan.

Chill the tart shells in the fridge for at least 15 minutes while you preheat the oven to 400 ºF.

When the tart shells are very cold and firm and the oven is preheated, line each tart shell with a silicone muffin cup and fill with dried beans or pie weights. If need be, pop them back in the refrigerator for a bit to firm the dough back up. 

Place the muffin pans on the bottom rack of the oven and bake them for 20 minutes, the edges will begin to dry out and turn golden when they have baked sufficiently.

Take them out of the oven when they are blind-baked, and let them cool slightly so that you can remove the silicone liners and pie weights.

For the filling: Drop the oven to 375 ºF (190 °C). In a medium bowl, stir together the melted butter, the brown sugar, the cream, the vanilla, the salt, and the egg. Stir well.

If you want to make tarts with raisins or nuts, scatter a few at the bottom of each crust. Divide the filling among the blind-baked tart shells.

Bake the tarts on the middle rack of the oven for another 15 minutes. The edges of the crust should be golden and the filling will be puffed and golden, but will not be boiling yet. If it’s boiling, the filling will be overcooked and sink.

Remove the muffin pans from the oven. Let the tarts cool for about 5 minute until they are firm, then gently twist them to make sure they will unmold when cooled. Once cooled, unmold the tarts with the help of an offset spatula.

My mom’s recipe, with my own twists:

Sylvia’s Butter Tarts

    My modifications: Mom always used a butter crust with these, of course. I used the butter crust recipe above, to test it, which was good. However, I made mine in the food processor in about three minutes. Just add the dry ingredients and cold butter, pulse until coarse, then drizzle in the water until everything starts to clump, then turn out and form.

I baked mine in mini-muffin tins as well, but I didn’t bother blind baking them (mom never did) and they did not end up with soggy bottoms. This made 42 little tartlets, great for a gathering. The amount will vary. Christopher made about 32, a slightly different sized mini-muffin tin.

    I omitted the nuts because of nut allergies in our home. However, I browned the melted butter to lend a little nuttiness to the recipe. This worked well.

    Rather than raisins, I used dried, unsulfured apricots which I soaked for an hour in dark rum. I used 2 tablespoons of the dark rum in the filling as well. This was really good!

    I made 1/3 plain, 1/3 with soaked apricots, and 1/3 with soaked apricots and chocolate chips. The chocolate took over completely so they were not my favorite in this case as much as I love chocolate. They didn’t have that memory flavor for me. This would prove to be the children’s favorite. 

    However, the ones with the doused apricots were superb, and by making them smaller, Christopher was right, they tasted much less sweet and were quite a nice bite.

• All-butter pastry for a two-crust pie
• ½ cup raisins (or dried apricots) optional
• ½ cupped nuts, optional
• 1 egg, beaten
• ½ cup dark brown sugar
• ½ cup dark amber maple syrup
• Large pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ¼ cup butter, melted

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.

    Roll out pastry and cut into 4-inch rounds. Tuck each round in the cup of a muffin tin, then add the raisins and nuts. (I used a mini-muffin tin and a 6 cm round).

    Mix all the other ingredients together in a liquid measuring cup for easy pouring, and divide among the tarts; this made 42 minis, and would make a dozen full sized tartlets baked in a standard muffin tin.

    Bake the larger tarts for 15 minutes and turn. They will probably need another 10 minutes to set. Cool completely.

    For minis, bake for 10 minutes and turn, giving them a last five minutes after to finish baking.

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