Butter Tarts
Posted On 17 June 2019
My wife is Canadian and this is evidently a Canadian thing. We take it to parties and no one here in the United States has ever seen these. They’re always popular. So this is probably my most-requested recipe.
Note: We’ve tried every store-bought pie pastry we can find. While I’m not generally a brand-name nut and think store-brands are usually just as good, not so with pie pastry — get the Pillsbury one. If you make your own pie pastry, bless you.
Butter Tarts (Full Recipe)
Wildly popular, Canadian treat. Scroll down for a half-recipe.
Servings: 96 tarts
Equipment
- Mini muffin tins. I use metal but maybe the silicone ones work, too.
Ingredients
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 2 cups packed brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ½ cup butter, melted but not too hot
- 1 ½ cups raisins
- 4 sheets Pre-made pie crust (2 boxes) (Get the Pillsbury one)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Grease a mini-muffin pan, 24-count is best.
- Cut pie pastry with a 2 to 2½ inch round cookie cutter, depending on what fits your mini-muffin tins.
- Put pastry shells into well-greased miniature muffin tins. (I use a cooking spray, but greasing each spot with shortening might be nice as pie crust is made with shortening.)
- Mix all ingredients – except the raisins – together.
- Put 3-5 raisins in each shell, covering the bottom pretty well.
- Spoon about a teaspoon of mixture into tart shells. Err on not over-full as the mixture will increase in volume when cooked and if the filling bubbles out they kinda spot-weld themselves to the pan and are hard to remove.
- Bake until shells are golden brown, about 12 minutes; check often.
- Remove from oven and let cool slightly before removing to a cooling rack. If any filling has bubbled above the shells and spot-welded the tarts to the pan, remove those while still warm.
- A full recipe makes probably 4 pans – 96 tarts.
Notes
- We often halve this recipe and then only add 2″ to each waistline.
And the half-recipe, in case math isn’t your strong suit.
Butter Tarts (Half Recipe)
This will still get you 48+ tarts
Servings: 48 tarts
Equipment
- Mini muffin tins.
Ingredients
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar (or cider vinegar I've heard)
- ¾ teaspoon vanilla
- ¼ cup butter, melted but not too hot
- ¾ cup raisins
- 2 sheets Pre-made pie crust (1 box)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Grease a mini-muffin pan, 24-count is best.
- Cut pie pastry with a 2 to 2½ inch round cookie cutter, depending on what fits your mini-muffin tins.
- Put pastry shells into well-greased miniature muffin tins. (I use a cooking spray, but greasing each spot with shortening might be nice as pie crust is made with shortening.)
- Mix all ingredients – except the raisins – together.
- Put 3-5 raisins in each shell, covering the bottom pretty well.
- Spoon about a teaspoon of mixture into tart shells. Err on not over-full as the mixture will increase in volume when cooked and if the filling bubbles out they kinda spot-weld themselves to the pan and are hard to remove.
- Bake until shells are golden brown, about 12 minutes; check often.
- Remove from oven and let cool slightly before removing to a cooling rack. If any filling has bubbled above the shells and spot-welded the tarts to the pan, remove those while still warm.
- This half-recipe makes probably 2+ pans – 48-58 tarts.
On filling, don’t fill too full. Here’s a sample.
