canadian butter tarts

So apparently here in Canada, Butter Tarts are a special treat! Since i have been here i have seen them around, but I had never heard of them until i came here, then silly me presumed to think they had something to do with butter. Well, no. Just lots of sweet toffee like sugary fillling and lovely light pastry and gooey centers...and...ok. Recipe time.

To start with i browsed online, i checked flickr for a recipe and found alida saxon's recipe which i may add look divine and my husband says that's what he knows them to look like =)
Then i browsed Tastespotting which is a nice way to find unique ideas or different angles on lots of recipes. This is where i found Warm Vanilla Sugar and i personally really liked the look of hers! Then somehow in my daze of buttery tarts...i found The Back of the Cupboard's Recipe and had come to a decision.

Most of the recipes filling ingredients were much of a muchness. So i figured i couldn't go wrong there. But the sound of cream cheese pastry really had me at hello. Mhmm.
So i decided to try Warm Vanilla Sugar's Recipe.

Recipe for ~Butter Tarts ~ Courtesy of :Warm Vanilla Sugar

This recipe makes 12 lovely butter tarts.
The pastry makes enough for 24

Ingredients:Tart Crust:

2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
6oz cold cream cheese
1 cup cold unsalted butter
2 tbsp ice water

Filling:
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup corn syrup
¼ cup unsalted butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
¼ tsp salt
*1/4 cup raisins or pecans if desired

Directions:

Crust:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C). Butter a 12-cup muffin pan.

2. Place the flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl. Grate in the butter and cut the cream cheese into chunks before adding to the mixture.

3. Then mix together until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in enough water to form a firm dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

4. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to 3mm thick. Use a circular fluted cookie cutter to cut out 12 dough rounds. Press the dough rounds into the prepared cups.

Filling:

5. With a mixer on high speed, beat the egg until frothy. Beat in the rest of the filling ingredients

6. Spoon the filling into the cups until almost full. Bake until piecrust in browned 20-30 mins.

Wait at least 10 minutes until cooled off before trying to take them out, So sticky!

Personal Notes:Mine took around 18-20 minutes to become golden and they turned out lovely! I also rolled the pastry around 5mm thick and even though it was thicker than the recipe stated i think it was so light delicious it complimented the tart extremely well =) I also made them plain, although next time i'm going to use pecans because WOW that can only make these scrumptious tarts better!

My husband was incredibly excited to come home to these! And he said they were just as he remembered! He had had a really busy day and butter tarts with a hot cuppa coffee was just what ne needed! My work here is done, thankyou to all my fellow flickrer's and blogger's who helped me with this one =) I learned a new recipe, found a new favourite tart pastry and became a little more Canadian, hehe!