Flaky Walnut Butter Tarts

My friend Tina makes the most fantastic rice pudding. It’s what she’s known for (at least, in my opinion). I love that she has her own signature dish.

I want to have a signature dish but I have recipe ADD and I’m off my meds so I can’t seem to make a dish more than once. I guess if I had to force myself to pick one it would be either hazelnut chocolate chip cookies or herbed focaccia because I have made each of these for the same groups of people at least twice (or maybe only twice. I can’t quite remember).

So Tina brought me some rice pudding on Friday (which she added raisins to, just pour moi because she knows how much I like them) when she came over to book our marathon trip to Disney World.

Right before she came I baked up some butter tarts because I didn’t have the ingredients to make anything else on my list of “must make desserts” and I wanted to offer something to snack on. Inevitably, I forgot to give her one.

A butter tart, in case you’re unfamiliar, is a bit like a British treacle tart or American pecan pie without the pecans. The crust is tender and chewy and the filling is gooey and rich. Sometimes the tarts have raisins or nuts added.

At first I thought these butter tarts were a big failure. Instead of the standard butter tart crust I decided to use the perfect pie crust recipe hoping for a lighter, flakier tart. When they came out of the oven a few of them fell apart as I tried to remove them from the muffin pan. Matt claimed they weren’t ‘real’ butter tarts because the crust wasn’t traditional. I was convinced that they were awful.

But when I tried one after they had cooled and settled overnight I thought it was great! Matt was right, they didn’t quite have the same chew as a traditional butter tart so if you’re looking for that traditional recipe then go somewhere else. But personally I really liked the lightness that the pie pastry brought to this version.

I liked them so much that I think I will use this recipe next time I make butter tarts (if my recipe ADD will allow for that). Who know, maybe my signature dish will be flaky walnut butter tarts?

Flaky Walnut Butter Tarts

Adapted from Canadian Living
makes 10-12 butter tarts

These butter tarts have a very gooey* filling and a light and flaky crust.

• Pastry

1/2 recipe for perfect pie crust

• Filling
• 1/2 cup packed  brown sugar
  1/2 cup corn syrup
  1 egg
  2 tbsp butter, softened
  1 tsp vanilla
  1 tsp cider vinegar
  1 pinch salt
  1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Preheat the oven to 450F.

Whisk together all filling ingredients except walnuts.

On lightly floured surface, roll out pastry to 1/8-inch thick. Cut 12 circles using a 4” round cookie cutter. Fit the dough circles into muffin cups. Divide the walnuts among the crust. Spoon in filling on top of the walnuts until three-quarters full.

Bake in the bottom third of the preheated oven until filling is puffed and bubbly and pastry is golden, about 12 minutes. Let cool in the muffin pan for about 1 minute before transferring to a wire rack to cool (be sure to remove them from the muffin pan before they are completely cool so they don’t stick)

*Note: for a not-so-gooey version Canadian Living suggests increasing the amount of brown sugar to 3/4 cup and decreasing corn syrup to 1/4 cup.

Prior Posts:

Week 8: Lime Curd Sablés
Week 7: Thomas Keller Chocolate Chip Cookies
Week 6: Macaroons
Week 5: Wildberry Dream Cookies
Week 4: Speculaas: Dutch Spice Cookies
Week 3: Poppy Seed Filling
Week 2: Cinnamon Bun Cookies
Week 1: Soft & Pillowy Coconut Frosted Cookies

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• Chewy Espresso Chocolate Cookie
• Brioche Cinnamon Sticky Bun Recipe
• White Chicken Chili with Hominy