Canadian · Dessert
Butter Tarts
- Intermediate
- 40 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with a sweet edge rounding the corners, richness that coats and comforts, leaving a faint perfume.
Ingredients
- 300 g all-purpose flour
- 170 g cold butter, cubed
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 90 ml ice water
- 150 g soft brown sugar
- 170 g golden corn syrup
- 60 g butter, melted
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp white vinegar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp fine salt
- 80 g raisins, soaked 10 minutes in hot water and drained
The skills inside
Sugar stages & caramelChilling to firm: the fridge as binderRubbing fat into flour
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Cut the cold butter into the flour and salt until the biggest pieces are the size of split almonds, add the ice water, press the dough together without kneading and chill 30 minutes. 30 min
- Roll 3 mm thick, cut 11 cm rounds, line a 12-cup muffin tin and chill again until the pastry is firm to the fingertip.
- Whisk the brown sugar, corn syrup, melted butter, eggs, vinegar, vanilla and salt just until smooth, stopping before it goes pale; beaten-in air makes the filling dome and then crater.
- Scatter the plumped raisins into the shells and fill each two-thirds only, since the filling climbs and any overflow glues the tarts into the tin.
- Bake at 190C (375F) for 5 minutes to set the bases, drop to 175C (350F) and bake 15 to 18 minutes, until the filling is puffed at the rim and still shivers like loose jelly in the middle. 5 min
- Cool 10 minutes in the tin, then twist each tart free while the caramel at the edge is still soft. 10 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Rubbing fat into flour 47 recipes
- The fat is cold when it starts and still firm when the rubbing stops, and the bowl has not warmed under the hands.
- Stopped early, while it still looks like coarse crumbs with pieces of fat visible in it, not worked on to a smooth even sand, which means the pieces have gone.
- Nothing is greasy or glossy and nothing has smeared into a paste against the side of the bowl.
- Liquid added last and only enough to bring it together: pressed, it just holds, with no wet patch and nothing sticking to the hand.
- Rested cold before it is rolled or shaped, so the gluten relaxes and the fat firms again after being handled.
Where it goes wrong The fat was too warm, or it was rubbed until the mixture looked uniform. Once the fat has melted into the flour there are no solid pieces left to steam apart in the oven, so the bake is sandy or tough instead of flaky, and nothing done later puts those layers back.
Chilling to firm: the fridge as binder 48 recipes
- It went cold before it was handled any further, and it went in spread flat and covered rather than as a warm mass that insulates its own centre.
- It is cold through rather than cold at the edge: tested at the middle it is as firm as it is at the rim.
- It holds its shape unsupported; it can be cut, portioned, rolled or lifted without slumping, tearing, or sticking to the hands.
- The fat in it has gone solid: it feels firm and waxy to the fingers rather than greasy and yielding.
- It survives the step it was chilled for, going into heat or a coating or a mould still holding its form rather than collapsing the moment it is touched.
Where it goes wrong It was given twenty minutes instead of the hours it needed, so it is firm at the rim and soft at the core: it slumps out of shape as it is portioned, and everything made from it spreads or breaks apart in the pan.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Tawny Port
- Also Right
- PX Sherry or bourbon
- From the Taps
- Barleywine
- Zero-Proof
- Cold-brew coffee
Caramel echoing caramel: oxidative aging built the same flavors into the glass that the pan built into the plate.
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