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Butter tarts are one of the few foods we have that are uniquely Canadian. We have many regional specialties but more often than not they belong to a culture that started somewhere other than Canada. We are, after all, an officially multicultural society. The mighty butter tart though is one food that we can brag about as being our own. Sure, there are other regional dessert that are similar - the south has its pecan pie and the Quebecois their sugar pie but there is only one butter tart. A pastry shell filled with butter and sugar and well, mainly butter and sugar.
The origins of the butter tart are much debated. No one really knows for sure when or where in in Canada it started. Wikipedia. pointed me to this Bill Casselman page on the noble butter tart saying that we have evidence of it at 1915. That seemed to the earliest that many people cited but then I found the Bumbling Baker and she pointed me to an article in the Metro News called Canadiana in a Cup that dates it back to 1900. So I can safely say that Canadians have been making butter tarts in their kitchens for more than a century, which isn't too bad for a country that's not yet 150 years old.
So what exactly is a butter tart (aside from delicious)? It's a pastry cup that is filled with a syrup that is made from butter, sugar and usually eggs. There may be lemon juice. You may add raisins or nuts. Or maybe you won't add anything at all. People who don't normally like dessert or "sweets", and I fall into this category myself, find themselves devouring these little goodies. Maybe it's as Playing With Tablespoons says and they are burned into our Canadian DNA. They even make some people like raisins (a feat that I do not consider possibly for many people). Miss Cavendish wasn't fond of raisins until she worked at the Confederation Centre of the Arts one summer and fell in love with these butter tarts. Kris at Back of Cupboard points out that when there are butter tarts around you cannot wait - there is no "later".
Growing up my father used to buy them and you had better be sure you didn’t take your sweet time getting your share, or you were out of luck! I have had an incredible craving for one of these the last two weeks, and finally got around to making them. I think I realize why I haven’t made them more than once or twice before, because I’ve eaten half a batch myself in just two days…so I should warn they may be slightly addictive!
My first batch I sent along with my Mr. BotC to work, and he said he left them at the front desk for whoever wanted one. When he walked by the desk at 9:30am they had vanished (he got there at 8:30am).
Now, everyone thinks they know or have eaten the best butter tarts. Maybe they are their grandmother's or mother's butter tarts that they grew up on. Maybe like Julie they've bought the best butter tarts from someone . I grew up thinking that my mother's butter tarts were the best butter tarts in the world and I would have verbally assaulted anyone who said otherwise (unless maybe they said my grandmother's were better, I'd let that slide). But I must stand corrected (though they still are very, very fine butter tarts).
Last year when I moved to Ottawa Lee and I started going to the Ottawa Farmer's Market. On one of our first trips there we stopped by Phyllis's booth and bought some butter tarts. We've never been the same since. We rave about them. We drag people to the farmer's market and make them buy them. This past winter when the market was closed we dreamed about them. Last weekend was the first farmer's market of the season and we made a beeline for Phyllis and snatched up a box of them. We told her how much we had been looking forward to them and she said she'd have to be able to not stand before she showed up without butter tarts. When we took the first gooey bite of our butter tarts that night we wondered if we could get her sainted. Saint Phyllis of the Butter Tarts. I think it has a nice ring to
