Karen’s Butter Tarts

I came there as a young bride not really knowing too much about cooking or baking.  My good friend, Karen, whom I am still friends with today, taught me many things in the kitchen ( much to Murray’s delight) and has shared several  recipes with me.

This is Karen’s recipe for Butter Tarts

You can add raisins, nuts or currents to these just by putting some in the bottom of the pastry shell before adding the filling.. you can make the filling firm or runny… you will see in the recipe how to adjust this.

 Karen’s Butter Tarts

 Ingredients

 12 unbaked tart shells. *** I made my crust using the recipe on the back of the Crisco box, I cut them out in large rounds using a tart ring, then very gently placed them into a muffin tin. you can use frozen tart shells.. just follow the directions on the package regarding defrosting and baking

1/3 cup butter, very soft

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup golden syrup

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

1 beaten egg ** if you like your Butter Tarts runny don’t put the whole egg in, if you like them a bit more firm then add the whole beaten egg

Raisins   …… or chopped nuts……or currents or nothing at all *** Murray likes raisins, I like nuts & the kids like them plain!

 Method 

Preheat oven to 350F

 1. Mix the butter, brown sugar, syrup, vanilla , salt and beaten egg together. Make sure this is well combined

2. If adding raisins or chopped nuts, put equal amounts of them in the bottom of the unbaked tart shells …I used 6 raisins in each tart

3. Using a scoop or spoon put equal amounts of the butter mixture into each tart shell..or as close to equal as you can   I look at the sides of the tart seeing how much the filling fills them up and try to make them the same for equal baking

4. Bake for approximately 20 -25 minutes until the crust is brown and the filling is bubbly and hot!

5. Run a knife around the outer edge of the tart while warm otherwise they will be difficult to remove as the filling kind of oozes out of the tart ( which is beautiful) and sticks to the sides of the muffin cups

6. Let cool in the pan for about 15 minutes then remove and place on a rack to cool completely before digging in! The filling is really hot so you have to be careful and restrain yourself from eating them while they are hot!!

Enjoy!