This month is going to be North America heavy – I can just feel it! Today it’s all about Canadian Butter Tarts, which are kind of like pecan pie without the pecans. The custardy mapley buttery goo inside these tarts, made with a butter/lard/sour cream pastry, are sinful, terrible for the cholesterol and totally and utterly gorgeous!
I’ve been wanting to make these little guys since meeting them in Canada last year. They are big in Ontario.
My first one came from White Meadows Farm, which has a beautiful maple “sugar bush” near Pelham, Ontario. I was on my way to Niagara Falls and saw their sign and had to make a VERY hasty exit off the highway… I adore maple syrup but had no real hope that I was going to find a producer on a day trip from Toronto to Niagara! I tasted every one of their 4 different strengths of syrup, bought a litre and a half of it (some of it made it into these tarts!) and had a butter tart for the road. They are amazing.
The pastry is super short and flaky. The interior is kind of custard, kind of caramel, a little mapley but not too sweet.
And they are super simple to make!
You can whip up the pastry in the food processor til it looks like this:
Lump it together and chill it for 30 minutes.
Roll it out to about 3 mm thick, and cut 12 10cm rounds, pressing them into muffin tins. Bunch up the offcuts and roll out again to get all 12 rounds. Chill the uncooked cases for 30 minutes while you make the filling and heat the oven.
Whip up all the filling ingredients in a bowl.
Pour the filling into the tarts, and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes…
They will puff up a lot in the oven…
… but subside when they are cool. The only problem is you need to let them cool in the tin for 20 minutes because they are easier to remove then… which means you have to resist the warm comforting smell. Some of them might have stuck to the bottom of the pans a little… they might break a tiny bit as you remove them. Three of mine did this but they were still intact enough to serve (shame, or I could have had three for dessert).
Maybe not the prettiest looking thing but oh boy these are totally SpokesPastries for the proposition that looks aren’t everything!
Best of all, they are incredibly good as dessert, a snack, with coffee, for breakfast… You can also add nuts like pecans or walnuts and/or raisins if you like, and you don’t have to make them with maple syrup – you can use light corn syrup, or for us antipodieans, golden syrup.
I got my recipe from Canadian Life.
Maple Butter Tarts
Sour Cream Pastry
In the name of research and gourmet heaven, make this pastry at least once with the lard component. After that if you can’t handle the whole animal fat thing, you can just use butter, but the pastry won’t have the same amazing texture.
ingredients
1 1/4 cups flour
65g butter, cold, cubed
65g lard or dripping, cold, cubed
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp cold water
1 1/2 tbsp sour cream
mixing
Combine the flour, fats and salt in a food processor or stand mixer fitted with a K type fitting, and process or mix until fine crumbs form – some might be pea sized. Mix the water and sour cream together, sprinkle over the flour mixture, and mix or process again until a raggy mixture forms. Gather this together with your hands, wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Remove from the refrigerator, roll out to 3mm thick and cut 12 10 cm rounds. Gather the offcuts together into a lump and re-roll to get all the rounds cut – that way you have as little wastage as possible.
Press the rounds into a 12 hole standard muffin pan, aiming to get the pastry up almost to the rim of each hole. You want a bit of a clearance between the top of the pastry and where the mixture comes to – this prevents overspill and sticking in the baking process! Return the uncooked cases in the muffin pan to the refrigerator for 3o minutes, while you make the filling.
The refrigeration process is important, it stops the pastry from shrinking when baked!
Maple Butter filling
ingredients
75g butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup (or golden syrup or light corn syrup)
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
mixing
Whisk all the ingredients together until smooth.
Remove the pastry cases from the refrigerator, and pour about 35 mL of filling into each tart case, so they are all the same level.
Bake the tarts for 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius, or until the filling is set and the edges of the pastry are golden.
Let cool for 20 minutes in the pan. Carefully remove from the pan, then cool completely on a wire rack.
Enjoy!xxx
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