Prize Butter Tarts

I love butter tarts - there, I've said it. Aloud. To you.

The ones I like best are the ones where the brown sugar is dissolved completely so there is no grainy sugar texture; gooey with just the right amount of runniness.  Everyone has their favorite family recipe and this one is mine.

99% of the time I can find someone who makes anything I can make 100 times better than I could make it. Hahah, now that's a sentence! I keep trying though, but these tarts, to me... are as good - if not better - than any I've found. The only improvement on what is written here is when the filling is paired with a homemade crust, but I had a bunch of tart shells in the freezer...and really, I'm thinking you won't mind, since you can't really taste what I made...so...you'll have to trust me and make them for yourself! :)

The recipe I love is from the 1970's Five Roses Flour cook book and it must of held the test of time because it was in their 1938 cook book also. The only difference is that the cooking temperature changed to 375 F instead of starting at 450 F and being turned down to 350 F.   I go the easy route and bake at 375 for the entire time. Just easier than babysitting the tarts in the oven...but you are free to try the other way too.

The ingredients are simple and most likely you have everything in your cupboard right now to get started. I doubled the recipe and used raisins instead of currents ...and added some walnuts, but that's just my preference.

I've seen other recipes that do not mention melting the butter, which could be the issue I've encountered with grainy tasting tarts. The 1938 recipe below doesn't state melting the butter but the newer version does. I'm not sure if they meant to use room temperature butter or every housewife just knew to melt it. I personally think the latter; in 1938 I'm pretty sure you left the house being able to cook and bake,  unlike nowadays.

Mix everything together, except the raisins/currents, making sure the brown sugar is blended and well dissolved.  I'm using darker brown sugar, so the mix doesn't look all that appealing, but it is yummy none-the-less.

Stir in the raisins/currents and nuts (if you want them).

Line your baking sheet with parchment paper or grease your muffin tins if you are making your own pastry.  Fill the tart shells 2/3 full. A single batch of the butter tart mixture should make 12 tarts.

Bake 375 F for 20 minutes or 450 F for 8 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 350 F and watch over them until they are nicely browned.

Let cool on the pan for a few minutes and then move to a baking sheet to cool a bit more. Careful, they have to cool a bit or the hot melted sugar can burn! After a sufficient amount of time - try not to eat more than one!

Prize Butter Tarts
Five Roses Flour - 1938 (pg 144)

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sifted brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp milk of cream
• 12 cup currents
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Pastry shells

DIRECTIONS
Mix ingredients together and place spoonfuls of the mixture in patty tins which have been lined with rich pastry or cookie dough. Bake in a hot oven (450 F) for 8 minutes; reduce temperature to 350 deg F. and bake until pastry is delicately browned.

To make Taffy Tarts, use the same mixture with currents omitted.

Cranberry Tarts for Thanksgiving

This weekend is Thanksgiving in Canada. Mmmmm Turkey, stuffing, veggies and homemade cranberry sauce...and of course dessert. I'm not overly excited for pumpkin pie, so I decided to make something that still would blend in nicely with the holiday.

My mom and aunt made tarts when my aunt was here visiting this summer and my mom talks about them quite often. They used a recipe for Cranberry Meringue Pie from the Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic cookbook, but without the Meringue. Right next to that recipe is a similar recipe for Cranberry Pie, so I'm not sure why they didn't use that one instead. I'll have to ask when I'm over there on Sunday.

I cheated a wee bit and used pre-made pastry shells for the base and used extra shells to make the pastry decorations. I think it would of been easier to get the dough out of the shell when they were frozen...it's way too soft and fragile trying to get it out in a less than frozen state. Just sayin'.

It's a pretty easy recipe to follow but it takes a little bit of time to wait for all the cranberries to pop and also for the final cooking part. Just a wee bit of standing around.

I doubled the recipe, which made about 60 tarts. The recipe (as it's written below) says it makes 1 9" pie, so I wasn't sure what that equaled out to in tarts, so to be safe I doubled it. More to share!

After dissolving the sugar in 1.5 cups of the water, I added in the cranberries and let it cook down for a while on medium heat. A bit more than a simmer, but not a boil, so I could walk away from the stove without things burning.  I could hear the cranberries popping!

After cooking so that most of the cranberries had burst, I tempered the egg, butter, water, salt, cornstarch mixture with some of the hot cranberry mix, and then while stirring the cranberries on the stove, I slowly poured the tempered egg mix in. Please don't scramble the eggs...please don't scramble the eggs...please don't scramble the eggs...hahah, that was what I was thinking in my head. It was scary to think it all could go wrong in an instant.

Phew!

At this point you let it cook until it turns clear and thickens up. I had the stove on medium-low (closer to medium) and it was taking quite a while to clear up, but it was getting less cloudy and thick. After about 20 minutes I had enough and to me it looked great..and goopy!

I put the cranberry filling in the tart shells using a soup spoon. Yes, I know, I need to learn to do this more neatly...or you might be nice and think that the below picture isn't too bad, but well...this was the cleanest looking set of tarts I had :)

I added on cutouts of acorns, hearts, and baby hearts.  Wala! Off to the oven.

I poked little holes in the tops of the acorns to give them a more acorny look. My sis thought it was cute :)  I'm not sure how people make nice clean looking tarts that don't bubble up and over. These ones weren't overly full and they sank down quite a bit once I brought them out of the oven. Guess I'll have to google that..

But messy or not, they are yummy. They are sweet and tart...and sticky! Sure, it's sad when a few tarts stick together, but there is a way to fix it...put them in your belly so no one sees them!

Cranberry Tarts
Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook - 1950 (pg 572)



INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup water
• 4 cups cranberries
• 2 Tbsp cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 Tbsp butter, melted
• 2 egg yolks, beaten

DIRECTIONS

1. Cook sugar and 3/4 cup water until sugar is dissolved.
2. Add cranberries and cook until they stop popping.
3. Combine cornstarch, remaining water, salt, butter, and egg yolks and add a small amount of cranberries. 
4. Mix thoroughly, add to remaining cranberries and cook until thickened and clear. 
5. Pour into pastry shell, cover with meringue and proceed as directed.

Or in my case, pour into a bunch of tart shells.

The recipe for butter pecan tarts says to bake at 325 F for 20 - 25 minute, so that's what I did.