Okay, so my sister is using her severance package (yes she worked at the GM truck plant in Oshawa Ontario) to start her own business. She is opening a Cafe (selling coffee and baked goods, breakfasts, sandwiches and trying to become a destination location for organic and celiac diets) on the Old Scugog road, just south of Port Perry - for those who have local geo - knowledge.
In order to start up, she sent out a Survey Monkey questionaire as to what baked goods to create & sell.
Can anybody guess what the number one response was?
BUTTER TARTS.
Yup.
Apparantly distinctly Canadian:
Butter tart - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So, I said I would try my hand at this, found a recipe out of the Best of Bridge cook book (note: the Joy of Cooking has no recipe for butter tarts!! Scandal!!) and cooked some up last night. I found them to be a bit on the sweet side, so may reduce the sugar content by 1 third for my next attempt. Also, the filling was not quite as runny as I prefer, so I may reduce the eggs by one as well. I'll try fiddling with one ingrediant at a time.
Here's the (dead simple) recipe. Please try for a tastey, addictive treat:
1/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups of brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp grated lemon rind
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup raisins (or cranberries - but raisins are better - next time I will soak the raisins in rum first)
- cream sugar & butter in a mixer bowl
- add eggs one at a time while still mixing
- when creamy smooth, add lemon rind, raisins and vanilla and mix in.
For ease of use, buy frozen tart shells. the recipe says enough for 36, but I only filled 24 (2 boxes) tart shells
- bake in a 375 (F) degree oven for 12 to 15 minutes
The mark of a classic butter tart is a home-made pastry shell. this is beyond my ability at the moment.
Some varients include the addition of distinctly Canadian items as: shredded coconut, macadamia nuts, pecans (pronounced Pee-Cans in the local dialect) drizzled chocolate.
TRY THESE! YOU WONT REGRET IT! You may even end up buying a toque and a 2-4 after this....
I realize that a picture is worth a thousand words. Voila:
