Butter tarts are a Canadian dessert with varying textures and ingredients, causing controversy. Making a flaky crust with butter and shortening is recommended, and the filling is made from butter, brown sugar, and eggs, with optional additions of corn syrup, nuts, or raisins. Cooking time affects texture.
The way a butter tart is made and enjoyed is actually the cause of a certain amount of controversy. Different people have very different preferences regarding the texture and ingredients used in their butter tarts. This means that the best tips for making a butter tart will depend a lot on what you or those you’re making tarts for prefer. In general, you should consider the crust you’ll be using, whether you want to make the filling runny or firm, and what types of ingredients you’d like to add to the filling.
A butter tart is a Canadian dessert that consists primarily of a small pie crust filled with a sweet filling. The ways in which the crust and filling are made, however, determine a lot about the resulting tart. While premade crust can be purchased and used, it is often recommended that you make your own crust. You should try to find a crust recipe that will help produce a flaky, moist crust that will brown nicely and create a buttery tart that crumbles when eaten.
If you already have a favorite pie crust recipe, then you should feel free to use that. Otherwise you should try to find a recipe that uses both butter and shortening, as each type of fat adds to the crust in different ways. You should also look for a recipe that uses vodka and water; the vodka will reduce the amount of gluten that forms, resulting in a flaky crust, and the alcohol and flavor will be completely cooked out of the buttercream tart crust.
Once you’ve determined the crust recipe you’ll be using, you can focus on the filling. At its core, a butter tart filling is made from butter, brown sugar, and eggs. Light brown sugar is typically used, and the sugar and butter should be thoroughly creamed together before adding the eggs and blending into a light, fluffy paste. You can also add some corn syrup to create a runny filling, but that depends on your preference. The cooking time will also affect the texture of the filling, with firm oven-baked tarts around 20 minutes while runny tarts around 15 minutes.
Many people also choose to add nuts or raisins to the butter tart filling; again, this will depend on your preferences. If you include raisins, soak them for about 10 to 15 minutes in hot water to moisten them. For a riper flavor, you can dip the raisins in warm rum instead to add depth to the flavor. Many Canadians who include walnuts in a butter tart use walnuts, although you may prefer pecans, which will make the tarts look similar to American pecan pie.
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