Battle: Butter Tarts

Like you, Gumdrop, I was in need of a baking challenge. I needed to muck about with flour and measuring cups, butter and rolling pins. I needed it desperately. I tied on my armor (okay, apron) and braced for battle.

You see, I decided to solve my own conundrum: which butter tart is best? Would it be the pastry made with pure butter or did a little shortening give a flakier crust? And having never imagined a world where butter tarts had corn syrup (isn’t that cheating?), I had to taste it for myself. Of course with 48 tarts on the loose in my house, I definitely needed to enlist help in determining which tart was best. Luckily, my mother’s birthday was looming and I’d have a captive, butter tart loving panel.

The opponents in this battle would be brash new school Wanda’s Pie in the Sky (Batch A), a local bakery that uses corn syrup in the filling and a pure butter pastry versus old school Five Roses (Batch B) with a classic butter tart recipe of straight butter, sugar, vanilla and eggs, but whose pastry was half butter, half shortening. I will admit to a certain partiality to the Five Roses recipe based on pure nostalgia since it’s the cookbook my mother and grandmother used as their baking bible. It’s Prized Shortbread recipe is the only enduring family Christmas baking tradition that my non-baker of a mother adheres to (probably because my brother and I would mutiny on the whole obligatory family thing otherwise).

With the soldiers prepared for battle, I whipped up the pastry. I’ll admit, I always feel some trepidation with pastry making, but with a little preparation and respect for procedure, my confidence has grown. Chill the fat, ice the water and refrigerate the dough before rolling it and you’re pretty much guaranteed that it will turn out well. And how fun is it to use a gadget like a pastry cutter? My lovely metal one from Williams Sonoma even has a little divet for your thumb. Very clever.

While tarts may seem a tedious when you contemplate having to roll out the pastry and cut out all those little circles, it really is very therapeutic. As someone’s days are a chaotic mélange of people and ideas, it’s nice to escape to something that demands time and patience. Up to my elbows in flour, music wafting through the kitchen, it’s probably about as Zen as I get.

As for the fillings, they were essentially the same except for that addition of the corn syrup.

I mixed it up by making each version with and without currants (you’d be court marshaled for nuts or raisins in this girl’s culinary army). Watching the filling bubble and bronze in the oven, I couldn’t help but admire the simple beauty of this humble little Canadian treat. Maybe it’s just a symptom of the times, but I’m going through a love affair with homey looking dishes right now. The days of fiddling with pristine pastry leaves and edible gold leaf seem like punch-drunk opulence now, all style and status and devoid of flavour and sincerity. Maybe I’m romanticizing those poor little tarts, setting them up for a mighty fall when some flashy gâteau catches my eye, but for now, I’d much prefer to nestle up with a lumpy homemade pottery mug of tea and a comfy rough hewn dessert.

The IE was on the frontlines of the taste test, plucking a golden orb almost straight from the oven. To offset the scalding nectar, he doused the poor thing with vanilla ice cream. Thus, he was an immediate fan of Batch A’s very runny filling as it mingled with the melting ice cream. Ooey gooey goodness, as he called it.

Personally, I’m not a fan of a dessert that needs a dribble bib, but the pastry had a lovely colour and tasted delicious (vast lashings of butter does that). So with one vote very firmly cast for Batch A, we sent off to visit the family, armed to the teeth with baking ammunition (What’s a birthday without cupcakes and a giant cupcake cake? This frosting, much like the one you made for Pretzel’s birthday, except with gobs of melted chocolate, is like eating chocolate mousse on cake toast. It’s definitely the kind of frosting you eat straight from the bowl in a frenzy until someone (like your startled new husband) discovers you with it smeared all over your face and you know the only way to not be judged is if you offer them a spoon, but your greedy neediness makes you hesitate to share a joy so pure babies would weep. Yes, I like this recipe).

But back to the butter tarts. Firstly, butter tarts in general are always a crowd pleaser. It doesn’t seem like anyone hates a butter tart if they’re over the age of 5. Mom, Bro and Nou (my bff) all chose Batch B, vehemently in favour of the flaky crust and the firmer, less sweet filling. A true and magnanimous butter tart lover, my dad was happy with both versions and demonstrated his affection by eating them until he got a stomachache.

I was completely alone in my currant preference, but most generals rule alone, don’t they?

Px

I’m feeling a little sleepy on this rainy Spring evening, so I’ll post the butter tart recipes later this week since both are so old school, I can’t track them down online.