Butter tarts

Butter tart is a true Canadian dessert. There are many different variations of it, runny, gooey, firm, with raisins, without raisins, with pecan, without pecans, chocolate...just name it. And there are probably as many recipes as there are Canadian grandmothers. Butter tarts are very sweet and when made with pecans they remind of baklava. Like the recipe that follows. These are also gooey, which is my favorite butter tart consistency.

Butter tarts

recipe adapted from here

makes 6

70 g flour

15 g ground toasted pecans

58 g butter

pinch of salt

about 1 tbsp cold water 

Cut the butter into small cubes, add flour, pecans, salt and with a pastry blender or food processor blend until you have grainy texture with some pea-size pieces of butter. Slowly add water and blend until everything comes together. Wrap and put in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
When the dough has chilled roll it out, cut out, line 6 muffin cups (or similar) and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. I use silicone molds (oval, each holding 100 gr water) as it is very easy to take out the tarts in case the filling leaks, which it almost always does.

Heat over to 200 C and blind bake the tart shells for about 15 min. Remove the beans and bake for another 10 min or until golden. 

In the meantime  make the filling.

40 g brown sugar
40 g maple syrup
40 g golden syrup
30 g melted butter
30 g egg
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vinegar
about 10 toasted pecan halves


Whisk all above ingredients except for pecans. Remove the shells from the oven and rise oven temperature to 230 C. Divide pecans over the shells and pour the filling into each shell. Bake tarts for about 10-15 minutes.