How To Make The Best Butter Tart—As Per Three Champion Bakers
(Photo: Erik Putz)
If you’ve ever had an excellent butter tart and wondered whether you could recreate it at home, we have great news: Yes, you can. We asked Craig Flemming, Lorraine Goldie and Caroline Peer—three bakers on the competitive butter tart circuit, and yes, that’s a thing—to share the secrets to their success. We recently met up with these three award winners at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, and we asked them how to nail an award-worthy batch of butter tarts of your own—whether your idea of “perfect” includes raisins or not.
The crust
Thin enough to neatly tuck into a moulded muffin pan and crimp at the edges—but not so thin it falls apart under the dense filling—a flaky pastry crust is arguably the most crucial component of a butter tart. It’s also often the hardest to get right. “The crust I use has changed and evolved many times, and [gone] between so many different rolling techniques,” says Craig Fleming of Toronto. He’s been a competitive butter tart baker for few years now—his pecan butter tart took home an award in the Best Traditional Butter Tart category at the Royal last month.
But one thing remains the same for Fleming: lard in the crust. Only. “I do incorporate butter in the pan just to keep things from sticking—I also found it adds a nice nutty flavour to the outside of the crust.”
Lorraine Goldie of Mississauga, Ont., meanwhile, sticks to butter. She remembers the first time she entered her butter tarts for competition in 2016. “I could see one of the judges saying, ‘butter butter butter… the pastry has to have it,” under his breath. I’ve worked hard to get a good, flaky butter pastry since.” Her recommendation? Gay Lea Bakers Gold Unsalted Butter, due to its higher fat content. (Chatelaine’s butter tart recipe, meanwhile, uses a blend of both lard and butter.)
Both Fleming and Caroline Peer of Ancaster, Ont. suggest a secret weapon for first-timers working with crust: the Classic Crisco Crust recipe printed on the inside of the shortening wrapper. “This is the recipe my mom still uses,” says Fleming. “It makes an excellent crust.”
The filling
In addition to making sure you follow baking heat and time instructions to the letter—you want to get a gooey filling that has a slightly custardy set—a couple of quick tricks can take the texture of your butter tarts from good to great.
First: make sure the sugar is incorporated thoroughly, says Goldie. “That sugar has to be melted, not granulated, so when you bite into it you don’t get granules.” She does this by slowly melting half of the butter used in the filling and whisking the sugar into it until completely dissolved.
Second: don’t be nervous about using corn syrup! Its function is less about sweetness than texture: it prevents sugar from crystallizing and keeps the filling, from edges to centre, smooth throughout. Fleming is loyal to Crown Golden Corn Syrup for this purpose. (Our recipe also uses corn syrup.)
The extras
Regardless of where you stand on the butter tart debate—raisins, nuts or just plain filling—there’s a wide range of options out there.
“I used to think it should only be plain, raisin or pecan,” says Goldie. But this year, she took the top four placements in the Royal Fair's special ingredient category with flavour combinations such as lemon-lavender and chocolate-cranberry-pistachio. A butter tart can be a canvas!
If she’s going to put anything in her butter tarts, Peer says, it’s likely going to be raisins. But she’ll treat them to a little simmer in orange juice before adding them to the filling to plump them up and give them a secondary flavour. “No one wants to bite into a hard little bit of fruit,” she says.
Flemming, however, is a purist. “I grew up on raisin tarts, so I’ve always had a special spot for them,” says Fleming. “But my wife thinks they’re disgusting. So I really like just plain ones now. No tricks, no gimmicks, just a great tart. I think there’s something wholesome about that.”
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Chantal Braganza is a writer and editor living in Toronto. She is deputy editor, food at Chatelaine, a cookbook nerd, lover of vintage dish ware, and currently training for yoga teacher certification. Her first book, Story of Your Mother, is out with Strange Light Press.
