Butter Tarts

I first heard of butter tarts in a YouTube chat room.  The filling is a lot like a pecan pie base with raisins instead of nuts.  Actually, you can put nuts in it too, so it really is just a mini-muffin sized corn syrup pie.

There was one in the International cookbook as part of a Canadian dinner.  There wasn't a crust recipe and the filling was too simplistic, so I found one on Tasting Table that looked better.  I'm actually very happy with the pastry crust recipe.  It was easy to work with and the re-rolls did not get as tough as I was expecting.  It may get re-posted on its own at some point.

Pastry
1-1/2 C flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 C cold butter, cubed
1/4 C cold shortening or lard, cubed
1 egg yolk
*1 Tb lemon juice
cold water as needed

1.  In a bowl, stir together flour and salt.  Cut in butter and shortening.

2.  In a measuring cup, beat yolk and lemon juice.  Add enough cold water to equal 1/3 cup.

3.  Make a well in the flour and add the liquids.  Mix together into a crumbly dough.  If necessary, add water a teaspoon or two at a time.  Pastry crust goes from dry to soggy very quickly.

4.  Form dough into a disc, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for at least half an hour.

5.  Pan spray a muffin pan or two mini-muffin trays like it was an ingredient.  Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface about 1/8" thick.  For full-sized cups, cut 4" circles.  For minis, use a 2-1/2" biscuit cutter.  Reroll scraps, using less additional flour each time.  Press into cups.  I have a cute little wooden tool to press into mini cups.  First time I've used it, but I'm definitely going to do it a lot more.  Love the thing.  Place trays in the freezer until ready to bake.  This isn't 100% necessary, but it helps to keep the crust from shrinking in the oven.

Filling
1/2 C packed light brown sugar
*1/2 C corn syrup
1 egg, room temperature
2 Tb butter, melted and cooled
1 tsp vanilla
*1 tsp lemon juice
about 1/2 C currants or other filling like pecans

1.  Mix all ingredients except the currants in a bowl.  Preheat oven to 450º.

2.  Get the crusts out of the freezer.  Divide the currants between the cups.  That's a heaping 1/4 tsp for minis and 1 tsp for regular muffin cups.  Add filling no higher than 3/4 of the way up the cups.  It's going to boil in the oven.  I tried spooning it in the tiny cups, then found it ten times easier to put the filling in a squeeze bottle.

3.  Bake about 12 minutes, until crust is golden.  Allow to cool on the counter until they stop bubbling, then run a scraper around the edge to loosen the cups.  If they cool in the pan, any syrup that boiled over will become water-soluble super glue.

4.  Allow tarts to cool a few more minutes after loosening, then transfer to a cooling rack.  Final product can be served still warm, cooled, or frozen for up to a month.

Makes 1 dz muffin-sized tarts or 3 dz minis

Difficulty rating :-0