My mother loved butter tarts. When I saw this recipe in the cookbook, I knew it was one I would bring back good memories today – the eighth anniversary of her death. Eight years gone. Feels so long ago and feels like yesterday at the same time.
What I love about this recipe is it is in my mother’s handwriting. She was always very proud of her penmanship. It was really sad for me when I found examples of her writing from her last years of life – seeing that it had gotten shaky and much harder to read. I imagine that must have been frustrating for her. But here we bring back to life a great example of it – she always put in her best effort for recipes.
We were always very much a prefers-raisins-in-our-butter-tarts kind of family. It’s a very divisive preference, and while my wife comes from a prefers-no-raisins family, she has come to tolerate them.
I found this recipe called for way too many raisins so that was the biggest alteration I had to make. I also found the crust too wet, probably due to the substitution of Earth Balance for butter. I also wonder if it was because I used a dark brown sugar, so I’ve made a couple slight changes to hopefully rectify that for next time.
Ingredients
BASE
- 1/3 cup Earth Balance
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups flour
TOP
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup flour
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups raisins
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Yield: 12-24 bars
Preheat oven to 350o.
Bottom Layer: Use a pastry cutter to crumble first three ingredients together in a bowl. Press into ungreased 9×9” pan. Bake for 10 mins.
Top Layer: Beat eggs and second amount of sugar until light and thick. Add the rest of the ingredients. Stir and spread over bottom layer. Bake for about 30 minutes or until centre is almost (but not yet fully) firm. Cut into squares when fully cool.
