This Buttery Dessert Is the “Most Necessary Contribution” to Canadian Identification

Stroll into nearly any bakery, grocery retailer, or farmstand in Canada, and also you’ll in all probability see butter tarts sitting within the pastry case. With an all-butter crust and a gooey filling of brown sugar, butter, and eggs, the tarts have wealthy butterscotch notes which may remind you of a nut-free pecan pie. Although the butter tart is not essentially the most visually interesting or dressed up dessert, it is extremely scrumptious and beloved by many Canadians—a lot in order that it was featured on a Canada Post stamp in 2019. “Overlook the beaver, overlook the fantastic maple leaf, overlook the majestic and haunting loon” a poster from a 2005 Library and Archives Canadian exhibit reads. “For all these years the nation has fully ignored a very powerful contribution to our identification as a nation, the butter tart.”

The place Did the Butter Tart Come From?

I used to be born in Ontario, Canada—the exact same province the butter tart is rumored to be from. Midland, Ontario claims to be the birthplace of the pastry; every summer time, the city hosts the Best Butter Tart Festival, the place greater than 60,000 individuals flock for a style of the nation’s finest butter tarts. Nonetheless, nobody actually is aware of for positive when or how the butter tart got here to be. “The very first butter tart recipe might by no means be discovered,” writes journalist Sara Bonisteel within the New York Times, “as a result of till not too long ago cookbooks weren’t seen as objects price preserving.”

The Canadian Encyclopedia means that the pastry might have advanced from the French sugar pie that settlers would have made within the seventeenth century. A number of sources, together with Bonisteel, credit score a 1900 cookbook titled Royal Victoria Prepare dinner Ebook with publishing the primary recognized butter tart recipe. No matter its origins, the butter tart stays in style in Canada as we speak, and guests to Ontario can take themselves on the Butter Tart Tour, which options greater than 50 bakeries that promote the candy.

Methods to Make the Greatest Butter Tarts

There’s nice debate amongst Canadians on what makes the very best butter tart: Ought to the filling be runny, or ought to or not it’s thick and gooey? Raisins or no raisins? A lot of it comes down to non-public choice. The recipe I’m sharing right here produces butter tarts with very gentle facilities, however, like those I grew up consuming whereas operating round my grandparent’s cottage, they’re not runny. The recipe beneath produces my platonic perfect of a butter tart, with a filling that’s heavy on the caramel and molasses notes. For ease and comfort, I take advantage of a muffin tin to make my butter tarts, although you’re greater than welcome to make use of particular person tart tins you probably have them. Hold studying for my tips about making the very best butter tarts, plus the total recipe.

Chill the crust. To make sure the crust doesn’t shrink and is as flaky as attainable, I name for refrigerating the dough when you’ve pressed it right into a muffin tin. This permits the gluten to chill out, stopping it from shriveling up because the tarts bake, and likewise retains the butter as chilly as attainable. Because the tart bakes, the butter within the dough melts, creating tiny little pockets of steam that bake into crisp, flaky layers. 

Attain for brown sugar. The mixture of melted butter, darkish brown sugar, and two eggs produces a gooey filling, and the darkish brown sugar brings a molasses-forward taste with notes of caramel and maple syrup. Utilizing just one egg would produce a runnier, sweeter filling than I want. Some recipes additionally embrace corn syrup to make the filling runnier, however I just like the sturdy taste and texture created by brown sugar higher. 

Add a contact of vinegar—and don’t overlook the salt. Distilled white vinegar brings a kick of acidity, and along with the salt, cuts by way of the sweetness of the filling, leading to a well-rounded dessert that isn’t too cloying.

Be at liberty so as to add mix-ins. Whereas I want the gooey filling to be the star of the present in my butter tarts, different mix-ins can definitely be added if you would like. It’s frequent so as to add raisins or chopped walnuts or pecans and even mini chocolate chips to the butter tart filling for a special play on texture.

Methods to Serve Butter Tarts

You may serve butter tarts for any event, whether or not it’s with afternoon tea, alongside a cup of espresso for a mid-morning snack, or for dessert. My grandmother, Nanny, all the time retains a batch of butter tarts within the freezer to drag out at any time when she wants a deal with to share with household or buddies. As a baby, I’d watch her pull them out within the morning earlier than firm arrived and allow them to thaw within the fridge. Butter tarts can both be served at room temperature or chilled, which provides them a splendidly chewy texture—it’s all as much as private choice. For me, nothing beats biting right into a cool, gooey butter tart proper from the fridge.