"A butter tart is a type of small pastry tart highly regarded in Canadian cuisine and considered one of Canada's quintessential desserts. The tart consists of butter, sugar, syrup, and egg filled into a flaky pastry and baked until the filling is semi-solid with a crunchy top." - wikipedia.
They're also simple as dirt to make. Here's how.
Ingredients:
- 24 storebought tart shells. To make "proper" butter tarts you should make your own pastry, but I'm being lazy here.
- About 1c worth of raisins. Walnuts or pecans work too.
- 1/2c salted butter.
- 1c yellow or brown sugar. White sugar will work in a pinch, but I'd throw a tablespoon of molasses with it if you're using it.
- 1c liquid sugar of some sort. Corn syrup, honey (what I used), maple syrup, glucose syrup, or Aunt Jemina all work.
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract. Rum extract works really well too.
- 1/2 tsp salt.
Directions:
Set your oven to 400F.
Lay your tart shells on a couple of baking sheets, and throw half a dozen raisins in the bottom of each. Or walnuts, or pecans, or whatever you're into. The wikipedia article says something about purists saying that shit shouldn't be allowed, but fuck 'em.
Get a 4c measuring cup. Or this ceramic thing my parents had at their house. Throw in the butter, and microwave 30-45 seconds until the butter's melted. Throw in the remaining ingredients and give everything a good stir or whisk until it's all homogeneous.
Pour your whisked together mixture straight from the measuring cup into the shells. I actually planned on sprinkling walnuts on top of them at this point, then I noticed the walnuts in my parents' cupboard expired 2 years ago.
Heave 'em in the oven. Set a timer for 12 minutes.
Once the timer goes off, keep a close eye on them. Haul them out when they look like this - bubbling throughout, tart shells starting to brown, and (most importantly) the sugar on top beginning to brown.
Let them sit for about 10 minutes - give them plenty of time to stop bubbling and cool down because they're basically liquid napalm at this point, and a sugar burn is worse than a pizza burn.
Once they've cooled down, if everything went to plan, they should look like this - tops should be crunchy, centers should be nice and gooey. These came out friggin' perfect.
Enjoy!
They're also simple as dirt to make. Here's how.
Ingredients:
- 24 storebought tart shells. To make "proper" butter tarts you should make your own pastry, but I'm being lazy here.
- About 1c worth of raisins. Walnuts or pecans work too.
- 1/2c salted butter.
- 1c yellow or brown sugar. White sugar will work in a pinch, but I'd throw a tablespoon of molasses with it if you're using it.
- 1c liquid sugar of some sort. Corn syrup, honey (what I used), maple syrup, glucose syrup, or Aunt Jemina all work.
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract. Rum extract works really well too.
- 1/2 tsp salt.
Directions:
Set your oven to 400F.
Lay your tart shells on a couple of baking sheets, and throw half a dozen raisins in the bottom of each. Or walnuts, or pecans, or whatever you're into. The wikipedia article says something about purists saying that shit shouldn't be allowed, but fuck 'em.
Get a 4c measuring cup. Or this ceramic thing my parents had at their house. Throw in the butter, and microwave 30-45 seconds until the butter's melted. Throw in the remaining ingredients and give everything a good stir or whisk until it's all homogeneous.
Pour your whisked together mixture straight from the measuring cup into the shells. I actually planned on sprinkling walnuts on top of them at this point, then I noticed the walnuts in my parents' cupboard expired 2 years ago.
Heave 'em in the oven. Set a timer for 12 minutes.
Once the timer goes off, keep a close eye on them. Haul them out when they look like this - bubbling throughout, tart shells starting to brown, and (most importantly) the sugar on top beginning to brown.
Let them sit for about 10 minutes - give them plenty of time to stop bubbling and cool down because they're basically liquid napalm at this point, and a sugar burn is worse than a pizza burn.
Once they've cooled down, if everything went to plan, they should look like this - tops should be crunchy, centers should be nice and gooey. These came out friggin' perfect.
Enjoy!