The Best Classic Canadian Butter Tarts - a definite keeper recipe! (2024)

FAQs

Why are butter tarts special to Canada? ›

Like many legendary dishes, the butter tart's origins are fuzzy. It's believed that filles à marier (“marriageable girls”) created a crude version in the 1600s. These newly arrived Québécois brides filled their French tarts with New World ingredients: maple sugar, freshly churned butter and dried fruit such as raisins.

If your butter tarts unfortunately turn out too soggy, it's likely your filling was too watered down or your pastry was rolled too thin. Next time, make sure your pastry is only rolled out to a 1/4-inch-thickness. It may take a couple tries to perfect your butter tart, and that's totally OK!

These buttery mini pies, typically baked in a muffin tin, have a flaky crust filled with a gooey mixture of butter, sugar, syrup, egg, and sometimes raisins or nuts. They bear some resemblance to the American pecan pie and British treacle tart, but their uniquely rich flavor sets them apart.

When making a pie or tart there is no need to grease the tin before you line it with pastry – the high butter content in the pastry will naturally stop it from sticking to the tin.

American dairy products are heavily subsidized, whereas Canadian dairy much more closely reflects the cost of production. The Canadian dairy industry works with much less government subsidy. Canadian dairy also have higher quality and safety standards than American dairy which increases costs.

Does America have butter tarts? Yes, any decent bakery will typically carry butter tarts, that quintessential Canadian pastry.

You can use cold unsalted margarine for the butter if desired, or you can use 1/2 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of shortening.

Blind-bake your base before adding a filling to help to firm the base and avoid liquid being absorbed into it. Prick the base with a fork to help steam escape, cover with foil or parchment, and weigh it down with ceramic baking beans, uncooked rice or white sugar.

A metal pie pan placed on a preheated surface will set the bottom crust quickest; once cooked, the liquids from the filling above won't soak in, and as a result: no soggy bottom. (Using metal is crucial: Glass or ceramic pans don't transfer heat as efficiently, so they can be accomplices to a sad, soggy bottom.)

You can replace the quantity of butter in grams with the same amounts of oil in grams, and there is nothing more to it than that!

Should butter tarts have raisins? ›

Raisins - I add raisins in my butter tarts but you can omit them completely or use currants or chopped pecans, walnuts, or almonds instead. You could even try chocolate chips!

Butter tarts most often boil over because they were filled too full before baking. Try to only fill each tart 2/3 full with filling so there's plenty of room for bubbling and expansion.

Holes in the dough will cause the filling to seep under the pastry, causing the tarts to stick to the pan. Toasting Nuts: You don't have to toast nuts when making butter tarts; they toast as the tarts bake in the oven.

-- To avoid "gritty" butter tarts, caramelize sugar first by blending on the stovetop with butter, syrup and vanilla. Let it cool before adding eggs to the mixture or they'll be scrambled.

Sucrose naturally wants to crystalize, which is how granulated sugar is made from simple sugars like fructose and glucose. To reduce the amount of crystallization in the butter tart filling when baking, try adding some acidity (i.e. lemon juice or 1 spoon of corn syrup).

To explain it simply, palm oil given to dairy cows increases the proportion of saturated fat in milk compared to unsaturated fat, thus increasing the melting point of butter. This explains why butter made from cows fed with palm oil remains difficult to spread at room temperature..

Canadian consumers expressed disappointment that butter stopped becoming soft at room temperature. Food experts attributed the hardness to an increased use in palm oil in dairy cattle diet, prompting the Dairy Farmers of Canada to recommend to farmers to cease adding palm oil to cow's diets.

Traditionally known as murgh makhani, butter chicken is perhaps the most ubiquitous dish on South Asian restaurant menus in Canada despite being a mostly North Indian dish.