Phenomenal Phoods

Butter Tarts

Ingredients:

For the pastry For the filling

Instructions:

For the pastry
  1. Cut shortening (or butter if you prefer) into flour and salt. Mix with pastry blender until it forms pea-sized bits.
  2. Add water and mix with a fork until dough forms. If you used butter, chill the dough for about an hour before rolling it out. If you used shortening, it’s easier to work with if you chill it, but I usually just go ahead and roll it out without any issues.
  3. Roll out the crust on a floured surface (I’m a big fan of pastry mats), making sure there is flour on your rolling pin as well. Keep the rolling pin constantly floured as you go to prevent the dough from sticking.
  4. This recipe makes 24 butter tarts so you will want to use a circular cookie cutter or a drinking glass to cut out circles. The butter tarts will be baked in a muffin tin so the circles should be just slightly larger than a muffin cup. You will have to sort of ease the pastry into the cups until it touches the bottom, and the sides should come up a little higher than halfway on the cup. If you have any tears in your pastry, you can use a little ice water and some pastry scraps to patch them up.
For the filling
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
  2. Pour boiling over the raisins in a bowl. Let stand until plumped (5-10 minutes) and drain.
  3. Arrange a few raisins in the bottom of each tart shell.
  4. Combine the melted butter and brown sugar. Stir in the corn syrup, eggs, salt and vanilla until blended. Pour into unbaked tart shells, filling about 2/3 full.
  5. Bake in preheated oven for 15-18 minutes. Do not allow filling to bubble over because it will be difficult to remove the tarts from the muffin tray. I would suggest cooling them for a few minutes on the counter and then transferring the whole tray to the freezer for a few minutes to make it easier to take them out. You should run a knife around the edges before removing the tarts.