Butter Tart Recipe: How to Make Canadian Butter Tarts
Written by MasterClass
Last updated: Nov 5, 2024 • 3 min read
Canadian butter tarts—small tarts with flaky pastry dough and a buttery, brown sugar filling—are delicious and relatively simple to make.
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What Are Butter Tarts?
Butter tarts are small Canadian tarts that feature a flaky crust and a simple filling made with butter, eggs, brown sugar, and dried fruit and/or nuts. They're packed with butter flavor, both in the pastry crust and the sweet, buttery filling.
Butter tarts are believed to have originated in Ontario, Canada. A 1900 Ontario cookbook contains the earliest known written recipe for butter tarts. They can also be found in Michigan near the Canadian border. A similar treat known as the border tart exists in Scotland’s culinary tradition as well.
4 Tips for Making Butter Tarts
Although rare outside of Canada, butter tarts are relatively easy to make when you have a few key tips in mind.
- 1. Chill the tart dough. Perfect butter tarts start with a simple homemade pie crust. Large amounts of butter or lard and cold water keep the pastry flaky, while an egg helps bind it all together. Chilling the dough for half an hour in the fridge before shaping it will help you achieve a perfectly flaky crust.
- 2. Use a muffin tin. You don’t need specialized tins to make perfect butter tarts. To make the individual tart shells, simply cut the dough into circles and press each circle into the cup of a standard 12-cup muffin pan.
- 3. Layer dried fruit and nuts on the bottom. If you prefer your butter tart with fruit or nuts, add them to the bottom of the tart shells before adding the filling on top. This will ensure the fruit and nuts won’t overly brown in the oven.
- 4. Fill the tarts halfway. To avoid overfilling your butter tarts, add just enough filling to come halfway up the pastry shells. Then bake them until they’re golden and bubbly.
Classic Canadian Butter Tart Recipe
makes
12 individual-size tartsprep time
1 hrtotal time
1 hr 15 mincook time
15 minIngredients
For the tart shells:
For the filling:
- 1
First, make the tart dough. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Add butter cubes, and use your fingers to work the butter into the flour mixture until the largest pieces of butter are the size of peas.
- 2
In a small bowl, whisk together the ice water and the egg yolk. Slowly add the liquid to the flour mixture, mixing it with your fingers or a fork until the mixture just barely holds together. You may not need all of the liquid for the dough to come together.
- 3
Bring the dough together into a ball and wrap it in plastic wrap.
- 4
Press the dough into a flat disc and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes.
- 5
Once chilled, roll the dough into a ¼-inch-thick rectangle. Using a 4-inch round cookie cutter, cut the dough into 12 circles.
- 6
Press each dough circle into the cup of a standard 12-cup muffin tin. Refrigerate the tin until ready to bake.
- 7
While the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
- 8
In a medium bowl, mix together the brown sugar, maple syrup, salt, and butter until combined. Add the vanilla extract and the egg and stir to combine.
- 9
Remove the tart shells from the fridge and divide dried fruit or nuts evenly between them. Top the fruit and nuts with the butter tart filling.
- 10
Place the muffin tin on a baking sheet and bake until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbly—about 15 minutes.
- 11
Let tarts cool completely in the tin before serving.
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