Butter Tarts

A Canadian Food!

Here we go again, another “Nod to Maude”. Grandma Maude also made these tarts. And this recipe comes from Grandpa Harold’s mother, my Great Grandma Hecht. Now, she was quite a gal. Very tiny, and very strong. She tolerated children, and even tried to spend some time with us, but her strict expectations and severe approach ensured we didn’t bother her very much. I have two vivid memories of her. One standing at attention to watch her peel an apple in one piece. It must have taken seconds, but my boundless childhood enery was on overdrive, and I recall it as torture. The adults revered her, and once the peel separated from the apple in one long curly tendril, they all “oohhhed” and “aaahhed” in unison and prodded us to do the same. (I might have been prodded by a kick in the seat of my pants.) She lived to be 98 and was still head of her household.

The second memory has nothing to do with her butter tarts, either. It is my mother’s memory shared with me so many times that I feel as if it is mine. It is a simple story of the importance of drying glasses with a clean dry tea towel. “One must always check the glass in the light to ensure it sparkles like crystal.” Those words I remember. “You don’t have to own crystal if your glass sparkles like it.” And of course, after the story was shared with me, I was destined to hold my glasses to the light when drying them.

Hey, Valerie! It looks clean from here!

These butter tarts are TO-DIE-FOR. Honestly, I have never eaten another even close to the calibre of this tart. First of all, the pastry is homemade. Who does that anymore? I even had my own mother making mine for me until about 2 years ago when I realized this was ridiculous. She was 78, and still making my pastry! And, I can do it now, very well. It was not hard to learn. But, it does require desire. Anyway, the pastry is homemade, and that makes a tremendous difference to the quality of this little bite.

Next, the filling is exceedingly simple. The original butter tart filling consisted of currants, brown sugar, egg and butter and is believed to have been created in the Ontario area in the mid to late 1800′s. I was thrilled to find this a Canadian creation. Maude was born is 1898 and traveled from Nebraska to Canada with her family when she was young. Harold followed the same settlement pattern, and his mother, with her industrious kitchen prowess and eagerness to prepare nouveau cuisine to her family at the turn of the twentieth century, must have discovered this recipe fairly early on as it was in the family “for ever”, and it is still true to its original root. The earliest written documentation of this recipe is from the 1920′s and includes corn syrup and vinegar, as our family recipe also does. Just a small addition to the original creation.

This is the pastry dough as it comes out of my Thermomix, and then as I form it into a ball.

I formed it into 4 discs for this recipe, instead of six.

Most often, the currants have been replaced by raisins which I find too sweet, and lacking the tart reference of the currant. Nuts and a plethora of of other ingredients have been added over time. But, not in our house.

My grandmas’s were bigger, and much more rustic in appearance, but I had started to make them small the first day the mini pan was invented. I wasn’t happy with the “look”, though. The round little crusts just needed a perk. Then, little Katie Halford brought her grandma’s butter tarts to a school party in the early 1980′s. She was in grade one. I was the teacher. They were beautiful. How did she do this? Katie would ask, and they following day brought her breathless teacher a little old (even for then) cookie cutter for me to “see”. I measured it, and then rustled though my mom’s box of cutters and reigned triumphant. YEAH! And, mom found another at an “antique” sale in Scottsdale AZ one winter. So, now I have two!

I have also mastered the art of not filling them too full (they look terrible when bubbled completely over the crust); and of removing each tenderly out of the pan about five minuted out of the oven with a sharp small knife. The filling does bubble up, and if you don’t release the shell from the pan when it is still warm, the little treat will stick and you will have a mouthful of luscious mush, but no tart.

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Guess what happens when a little beaver gets a hold of two tarts?

51/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. salt

1 lb. Tenderflake lard

1 tbsp. vinegar

1 egg, lightly beaten

Water

Tags: butter, Canadian