Prepare the pastry: Whisk egg and vinegar together in a 1 cup liquid measure. Add cold water until mix measures ½ cup then whisk again. Add 1 or 2 ice cubes to keep this liquid very cold. Set aside.
Sprinkle the salt into the flour. Stir to combine then pour half the quantity into a food processor fitted with a blade attachment. Add the cubed butter and shortening then add remaining flour. Run processor on low speed to form small pea-sized crumbs. Sprinkle 6 tablespoons of liquid onto the flour mixture, then run on low to combine. Add a bit more liquid if the dough seems dry. Spill the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and bring together by hand. Do not overwork. Form into disc and wrap, refrigerating for at least six hours, preferably overnight.
Prepare tart shells: On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a ¼-inch thickness. Cut out 4-inch circles using a cookie cutter, glass, cup or bowl. Transfer the rounds of dough to a large, 12-cup non-stick muffin pan, pushing them down into each well. Transfer muffin pan to refrigerator and chill for 30 minutes.
If using raisins: Place them into a small bowl and cover with boiling water, leaving them to sit for 10 minutes. Strain then transfer to a paper towel-lined plate to remove excess moisture.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Prepare the filling: In a small saucepan, add brown sugar, butter, maple syrup, granulated sugar and salt. Place on stovetop set to low or moderate heat. Stir to melt butter and dissolve sugars and salt.
Crack eggs into a large liquid measure. Add vanilla and vinegar and whisk to combine. While continuously whisking, slowly drizzle in sweetened butter mixture until well combined.
Prepare the butter tarts: Remove tart shells from refrigerator. If preparing the butter tarts with fruit and nuts, add a few of each into the centre of each pastry-lined cup. Pour tart filling into each cup, ¾ full and never to the top. Transfer to preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes. Then rotate the pan, reduce temperature to 375°F and bake for 8 - 10 minutes more or until pastry is golden and centres no longer jiggle and seem firm.
Cool tarts in pan for about 15 minutes before removing. Enjoy!
World’s Best Butter Tarts Recipe
Ingredients
For the tart pastry:
2¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour (322g)
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup butter, cold (115g)
½ cup vegetable shortening or lard, cold (95g)
1 egg
1 tablespoon white vinegar
6-8 tablespoons cold water
extra flour for rolling the pastry
For the filling:
½ cup butter
⅔ cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup pure Canadian maple syrup
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Optional:
nuts: ¼ cup pecans or walnuts, chopped
dried fruit: ¼ cup raisins or currants
Directions
Prepare the pastry: Whisk egg and vinegar together in a 1 cup liquid measure. Add cold water until mix measures ½ cup then whisk again. Add 1 or 2 ice cubes to keep this liquid very cold. Set aside.
Sprinkle the salt into the flour. Stir to combine then pour half the quantity into a food processor fitted with a blade attachment. Add the cubed butter and shortening then add remaining flour. Run processor on low speed to form small pea-sized crumbs. Sprinkle 6 tablespoons of liquid onto the flour mixture, then run on low to combine. Add a bit more liquid if the dough seems dry. Spill the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and bring together by hand. Do not overwork. Form into disc and wrap, refrigerating for at least six hours, preferably overnight.
Prepare tart shells: On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a ¼-inch thickness. Cut out 4-inch circles using a cookie cutter, glass, cup or bowl. Transfer the rounds of dough to a large, 12-cup non-stick muffin pan, pushing them down into each well. Transfer muffin pan to refrigerator and chill for 30 minutes.
If using raisins: Place them into a small bowl and cover with boiling water, leaving them to sit for 10 minutes. Strain then transfer to a paper towel-lined plate to remove excess moisture.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Prepare the filling: In a small saucepan, add brown sugar, butter, maple syrup, granulated sugar and salt. Place on stovetop set to low or moderate heat. Stir to melt butter and dissolve sugars and salt.
Crack eggs into a large liquid measure. Add vanilla and vinegar and whisk to combine. While continuously whisking, slowly drizzle in sweetened butter mixture until well combined.
Prepare the butter tarts: Remove tart shells from refrigerator. If preparing the butter tarts with fruit and nuts, add a few of each into the centre of each pastry-lined cup. Pour tart filling into each cup, ¾ full and never to the top. Transfer to preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes. Then rotate the pan, reduce temperature to 375°F and bake for 8 - 10 minutes more or until pastry is golden and centres no longer jiggle and seem firm.
Cool tarts in pan for about 15 minutes before removing. Enjoy!
World’s Best Butter Tarts Recipe
4.1 / 5. 11
Pecans and plump raisins in a sweet filling of butter, sugars and egg, baked in a flaky pastry shell…
Here it is friends, the WORLD’S BEST BUTTER TARTS RECIPE!
BUTTER TARTS are often referred to as the quintessential Canadian sweet treat. That said, and you heard it here first, no two butter tart recipes are the same. Ours has been a labour of love where we tried and tested the recipe again and again until we got it just right. This Canadian butter tart recipe had our expert taste testers and judges (AKA, our beloved family and friends) agreeing this really is the WORLD’S BEST BUTTER TARTS RECIPE.
For all the doubting Thomas tart lovers out there, read on to discover what went into creating this recipe and, if possible, please do us the honour of making it with our add-ins. Then let us know your final verdict.
Before we take a deep dive into what it takes to make scrumptious butter tarts from scratch, how about a rundown of the main steps:
Prepare and chill a buttery, flaky tart dough.
Roll out the dough, cut it into rounds, and then tuck those dough circles into the wells of a muffin pan.
Prepare the add-ins, pecans and raisins. No worries if they’re not to your taste, they’re optional, so just skip ahead!
Whisk up the distinctive filling made with butter, sugars, eggs and a few additional flavour boosters.
Fill the chilled tart shells and bake. Draw the line at having no more than two butter tarts still warm from the oven!
You ready? So are we! Let’s make the WORLD’S BEST BUTTER TARTS RECIPE.
INGREDIENTS
We’ve created this recipe post with two photos of the ingredients you’ll need to make it. One is of the ingredients specifically to craft the flaky dough for the tart shells, the other is the one above showing everything needed to make butter tarts. We’ll go through the various components down below, but for now, the big takeaway is that no exotic or hard-to-find ingredients are needed. What a relief! No need to call the Canadian Mounties to assist with an ingredient discovery mission. We’re going for easy here with this recipe, and this is just the beginning.
TART PASTRY DOUGH
One of the hallmarks of this storied dessert is the dough for the tart shells. At first blush, we were tempted to simply fill the cups of the muffin tin with our ALL-BUTTER PIE CRUST. After all, everyone loves an all-butter crust paired with a fresh fruit or sweet pie filling, right? But then we realized the pastry for these tarts needed to be an ultra-flaky pastry with lots of buttery flavor. The picture above shows how we accomplished that. We used both butter and vegetable shortening. The quantity of flour in this dough recipe was also reduced because, less flour and more fat yields a more memorable, flaky pastry.
Next detail about this homemade dough: we made it using a food processor instead of making by hand. Doing so keeps the process virtually effortless. That said, we do have a couple of suggestions. First, make sure the butter and shortening (or lard) are cold before you begin. Second, and this is worthy of the extra step, measure the butter, shortening and flour by weight. The one stick of butter (½ cup) called for in this recipe will equal 115g. The shortening though (also ½ cup) measures 95g and needs to be cut from a large brick. Get these measurements right: unbleached all-purpose flour 322g, butter 115g, shortening 95g. After that, follow our easy instructions using the food processor as directed for the perfect tart pastry each and every time.
CHILL OUT
The last tip about making the dough for these butter tarts is to chill. It’s super important that you allow enough time to refrigerate the dough after making it. Chilling the dough for at least six hours, although we recommend overnight, allows the butter and shortening to re-solidify. This chilled rest period also disperses the liquid through the dough and gives the protein in the gluten strands a chance to relax. Here’s this recipe’s reality check! Keep an extra disc of this dough wrapped in plastic wrap in the freezer at all times because you will be making the recipe again and again.
MUFFIN TINS
We tested this recipe using both aluminium and coated, non-stick muffin pans. We found that not all of the tarts came away from the aluminium pans cleanly without crumbling, and that was even after we prepped the pan with cooking spray. The non-stick pan worked better, although we do suggest you check the tarts during the last five minutes of baking time. Baked goods prepared in non-stick pans often bake faster than those made in stainless or aluminium pans. Last detail about using a muffin or cupcake pan for this recipe. We found the 12-cup pans, where each well measures 3-inches in diameter and 1-inch deep, worked best. They create perfectly sized butter tarts, not too tiny but not too big.
TART SHELLS
Rolling out the pastry and creating the shells for the tarts is easy. Make sure to watch the VIDEO attached to this story to get a sense of how we did it. Then, simply flour your pastry board, flour your pin and go to town. That “go to town” is a cottage country reference, but it’s the same process if you make tarts in the city too. Pro tip: Hold the dough in your hands for a few moments when you first bring it out from the refrigerator. This will warm it up and make it a little more pliable as you begin to roll. It prevents the dough from cracking under the pressure of the rolling pin.
PASTRY CUTTERS
After the dough is rolled out into a large rectangle or circle, ¼-inch thick, cut discs of dough 4-inches in diameter. You can use a round cookie cutter, plain or fluted biscuit cutter, wide-mouthed glass, bowl or mug. We found cutting all 12 dough circles out before transferring them to the muffin tin is an excellent method. This ensures all the dough scraps get used, and for the most part, the shells end up the same thickness.
SHELL GAME
Two additional suggestions for these flaky pastry shells. Make sure to push each 4-inch dough round right to the bottom of the wells. We expect you’ll notice how the dough gets a bit curvy as you push down, and yes, there may even be crimps along the edge. That’s what you want! Those little curves and crimps are what make every single BUTTER TART unique. Last thing about the tart shells: they go back into the fridge for 30 minutes to chill before we fill and bake them. This will prevent them from shrinking when they first start baking.
FILLING
We created the filling for our butter tart recipe using a combination of three sweetening agents: dark brown sugar, granulated sugar and just a ¼ cup of maple syrup. The dark brown sugar adds caramel and molasses notes giving these tarts a bit of “shoofly pie” flavouring. The granulated sugar, dissolved in the melted butter, reduces the chance for the filling to crystallize as it bakes. It still gives the tarts just the right level of sweetness. Lastly, adding maple syrup to the filling mirrors Quebec’s famous“sugar pie (tarte au sucre), dating back to the 1600s. Having that rich maple flavouring in these tarts is incroyable, bien sûr!
Preparing the filling happens in two stages. First, the sugars, syrup, kosher salt and butter are melted together in a small pan over moderate heat. The key here for best results is to stir the mixture constantly while the sugars and salt completely dissolve into the butter and syrup – no lingering grainy bits allowed. The goal is to have a smooth lukewarm mixture.
The next stage to preparing the filling is to whisk the melted butter-sugar mix in with two eggs at room temperature, vanilla extract and white vinegar. Wait, what? What does white vinegar do to butter tarts? Interestingly enough, the vinegar gives the tarts a bit of tang and pops the flavour of the dark brown sugar and syrup. When whisking the filling, we suggest using a large liquid measure instead of a bowl; it makes pouring the filling into the shells effortless.
CANADA’S GREAT BUTTER TART DEBATE – PART ONE
We couldn’t possibly post the WORLD’S BEST BUTTER TART RECIPE without addressing the divisive add-ins that have practically sparked a national debate. Do dried fruit and nuts belong in the filling for butter tarts? Should I add raisins or currants and walnuts or pecans? Well, here’s our take: there is no correct, definitive answer. Instead, it all comes down to personal taste and preference. One thing we can assure you is that this recipe will turn out perfectly whether you make it with or without the dried fruit and nuts. All you plain butter tart purists out there can proceed and make the recipe without worry.
We are drawing our line in the butter tart sand. Our official policy, evolved from our democratic process of testing this recipe, has us recommending you add raisins and chopped pecans. There, we said it! Don’t get us wrong, we still love and will never turn down plain butter tarts, it’s just that those made with pecans and raisins plumped up in hot water have way more flavour. The buttery notes of pecans and the soft sweetness of raisins are, in our humble opinion, sensational!
CANADA’S GREAT BUTTER TART DEBATE – PART TWO
Part two of Canada’s great butter tart debate is all about whether or not the filling in the butter tarts should be firm or runny. Well, we learned that a couple of different things contribute to the texture of the filling. Similar to the fruit-and-nut debate, we’ve decided this second issue may also come down to personal taste, but here are a few things we discovered during testing. Using one egg for the filling instead of two produces a runnier texture. Baking the tarts for less than 16 minutes also produces tarts that don’t fully set, making them runny. We also discovered that making the filling with high-fructose corn syrup instead of maple syrup also causes the filling to be way more runny.
The final word on this is our butter tarts are firm, yet have a soft and creamy centre. In our books, runny butter tarts are underwhelming and way too sweet to be enjoyed. And another thing, you can’t enjoy a butter tart while driving to the cottage if it’s dripping all over the place. Didn’t think of that, did you?!
FILL AND BAKE
When it’s time to fill and bake these great Canadian butter tarts, we take the chilled tart shells from the fridge, drop a few raisins and maybe ½ a teaspoon of chopped pecans into each shell. Doing so will add lots of flavour, but don’t worry, these tarts won’t taste like pecan pie. The flavour of these tarts is richer with just a hint of nutty, maple flavours.
Next comes the buttery, sweetened tart filling, adding enough liquid to fill each shell ¾ full. We suggest waiting maybe a minute after adding the filling to give it time to fully envelop the chopped pecans and plumped-up raisins. You may need to add a drop more of the filling to each tart to then get to that ¾ fill mark before sending them off to bake.
Baking them is easy, but there are two tiny side steps you’ll need to manage. The first one is to reduce the oven temperature from 400°F to 375°F after the first 10 minutes. The second step is to do a 180° rotation of the pan right midway through the bake. The total bake time for these tarts is 20 minutes, but please check for doneness at the 18-minute mark. You’re looking for tarts with golden pastry crusts and centres that no longer jiggle and appear firm. The top of the tarts will be puffed up and look crunchy.
SERVE
When the tarts are done, bring them out of the oven and leave them to cool for about 15 minutes. You should then be able to twist them in the pan and carefully lift them out onto a board, plate or wire rack to cool completely. Sometimes the filling of the tarts bubbles up and overflows the crust. Run a thin knife along the edge of the tart top to release it from the pan. They should come out intact, without incident.
We couldn’t post this story without a shot of one of the BUTTER TARTS cut open to reveal the inside. Check out that flaky pastry; so buttery and soft. Look at that centre. Not runny yet still incredibly soft and creamy. Lastly, how about those pecans and raisins? We’re saying give this recipe a try. We know you’re going to love them. If on the odd chance you have a few extra, store them in an airtight container to keep them fresh or pop them in the freezer making sure to warm them from frozen for maximum enjoyment. Yum!
This treat recipe is so fabulous, we suggest you PIN it to a favourite dessert or baked goods board on PINTEREST or BOOKMARK this tab for easy access. SHARE it with friends so they can make it too. We’d also appreciate seeing pics of all the delicious dishes you’re making these days. Use #weekendatthecottage when you post those pics on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks!
We hope you enjoy the WORLD’S BEST BUTTER TART RECIPE. Pretty awesome, eh?!
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Ingredients
For the tart pastry:
2¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour (322g)
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup butter, cold (115g)
½ cup vegetable shortening or lard, cold (95g)
1 egg
1 tablespoon white vinegar
6-8 tablespoons cold water
extra flour for rolling the pastry
For the filling:
½ cup butter
⅔ cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup pure Canadian maple syrup
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Optional:
nuts: ¼ cup pecans or walnuts, chopped
dried fruit: ¼ cup raisins or currants
Directions
Prepare the pastry: Whisk egg and vinegar together in a 1 cup liquid measure. Add cold water until mix measures ½ cup then whisk again. Add 1 or 2 ice cubes to keep this liquid very cold. Set aside.
Sprinkle the salt into the flour. Stir to combine then pour half the quantity into a food processor fitted with a blade attachment. Add the cubed butter and shortening then add remaining flour. Run processor on low speed to form small pea-sized crumbs. Sprinkle 6 tablespoons of liquid onto the flour mixture, then run on low to combine. Add a bit more liquid if the dough seems dry. Spill the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and bring together by hand. Do not overwork. Form into disc and wrap, refrigerating for at least six hours, preferably overnight.
Prepare tart shells: On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a ¼-inch thickness. Cut out 4-inch circles using a cookie cutter, glass, cup or bowl. Transfer the rounds of dough to a large, 12-cup non-stick muffin pan, pushing them down into each well. Transfer muffin pan to refrigerator and chill for 30 minutes.
If using raisins: Place them into a small bowl and cover with boiling water, leaving them to sit for 10 minutes. Strain then transfer to a paper towel-lined plate to remove excess moisture.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Prepare the filling: In a small saucepan, add brown sugar, butter, maple syrup, granulated sugar and salt. Place on stovetop set to low or moderate heat. Stir to melt butter and dissolve sugars and salt.
Crack eggs into a large liquid measure. Add vanilla and vinegar and whisk to combine. While continuously whisking, slowly drizzle in sweetened butter mixture until well combined.
Prepare the butter tarts: Remove tart shells from refrigerator. If preparing the butter tarts with fruit and nuts, add a few of each into the centre of each pastry-lined cup. Pour tart filling into each cup, ¾ full and never to the top. Transfer to preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes. Then rotate the pan, reduce temperature to 375°F and bake for 8 - 10 minutes more or until pastry is golden and centres no longer jiggle and seem firm.
Cool tarts in pan for about 15 minutes before removing. Enjoy!
Until Cottage Season
