Butter Tarts - Mom

I felt a bit bad teasing my Dad last week, I have Mom’s recipe book with the butter tarts recipe in it. Which means that she can’t make them because she doesn’t have the recipe anymore. So I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone, have another try at making pastry and get the butter tarts up on the blog so at least Mom has access to the recipe should she decide to take pity on Dad and make him some.  I secretly think he would be happy enough with the lead up to Christmas if it was all about butter tarts, no tree, no decorations, no presents and definitely no snow, just a pile of butter tarts.

I explain butter tarts to my British friends as ‘what you should be eating at Christmas instead of mince pies.’ I hate mince pies, they’re a very evil thing to offer someone who is expecting a sweet treat, and when I offer butter tarts I get a lot of agreement on my stance. It is a personal mission to convert Britain to butter tarts instead of mince pies, that and pronouncing tomato as toe-may-toe, not toh-maa-toh, but the butter tarts are more important and I think I'm losing the toh-maa-toh war.

As for my latest pastry attempt, after intensive consultation with the pastry master (thanks Gram!) and some video searching online for technique, my results have improved greatly. I used Gram’s proportions of 3 cups of flour to 1 cup of fat, cut it in coarsely rather than fine, and add the liquid in 1 spoonful at a time. The pastry was very dry and very stiff, I probably could have used a bit more fat to make it softer, but it was flakier, I think, due to the coarser cutting and fully cooked on the bottom and best of all, didn’t shrink! The tart cases went into the oven the same height as the tin and came out the same height too, I couldn’t believe it! I might start working up the courage to make a pie with a pastry lid, I'll share my pastry recipe when I can get that to work.

Butter Tarts

Pre-heat an oven to 450^F (232^C)

Roll our and line a 12 hole muffin tin with short crust pastry

Mix together either with a hand mixer or a whisk:

1 egg

1/3 cup butter - room temperature soft

1 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

Stir in

1/2 cup raisins

Fill the pastry 2/3 full make sure you try to get some raisins in each one!

Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350^F (117^C) and bake for another 10 - 15 minutes

Christmas Pastry Perfection.

***Update:  My Mom made some butter tarts for my Dad and sent me a few pictures.

Compare her tarts below to mine above.  Mom got a better baked sugar crust on the top of hers.

Here's my happy pappy with his butter tarts!