Miniature versions of Canada's beloved butter tart — flaky pastry cups filled with a gooey brown sugar and raisin filling.
The butter tart is one of Canada's most distinctly homegrown desserts, with no clear European or American equivalent, believed to have originated with early Scottish and English settlers in Ontario who adapted their pastry traditions using local maple syrup and readily available brown sugar. This bite-sized version bakes the same filling — butter, brown sugar, egg and a splash of vinegar for balance — into mini muffin-tin pastry shells instead of the traditional larger tart size, giving a higher pastry-to-filling ratio and making them easy to serve at a gathering. The defining debate among Canadians is whether a proper butter tart filling should be runny or set, and whether raisins belong in it at all — this version aims for the classic middle ground: a filling that's gooey and slightly liquid in the center once cool, with raisins plumped in warm water first so they don't dry out during baking. The pastry itself needs to be sturdy enough to hold that liquid filling without leaking, which is why a proper all-butter shortcrust, chilled well before baking, matters. These are a fixture of Canadian bake sales, farmers markets and holiday cookie trays, small enough to eat in two bites but carrying all the flavor of the full-sized original.
Serves 12
Pulse flour, salt and cold cubed butter until pea-sized crumbs form. Add ice water a tablespoon at a time until the dough just comes together. Chill 30 minutes.
Soak raisins in warm water for 10 minutes, then drain well.
Plumping the raisins keeps them from drying out and going leathery in the oven's heat.
Roll out the chilled pastry and cut circles to fit a mini muffin tin. Press into the cups, dividing raisins between them.
Whisk brown sugar, melted butter, eggs, maple syrup, vinegar and vanilla together until smooth.
Pour the filling over the raisins in each pastry cup, filling about three-quarters full. Bake at 200°C (400°F) for 15-18 minutes until the pastry is golden and the filling is bubbling but not fully set.
Cool in the tin for 15 minutes before carefully removing — the filling firms up as it cools.
Plump the raisins in warm water first, or they'll dry out and turn hard during baking.
Don't overfill the pastry cups — the filling bubbles up significantly in the oven and can overflow.
Let the tarts cool fully in the tin before removing; trying to lift them out warm risks the gooey filling spilling out.
Leave out the raisins entirely for the 'no-raisin' camp, a genuinely divisive but common Canadian preference.
Add chopped pecans or walnuts instead of, or alongside, the raisins for crunch.
Use all maple syrup instead of brown sugar for a more pronounced maple flavor, a popular Quebec variation.
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days. They can be frozen unbaked or baked for up to 2 months.
The butter tart is considered one of the few genuinely Canadian-invented desserts, with the earliest known recipe appearing in a 1900 Ontario cookbook, likely evolving from British settlers' pastry traditions combined with locally available maple syrup and brown sugar. The raisins-or-no-raisins and runny-or-set-filling debates remain a genuine point of regional and family pride across the country.
This is genuinely debated across Canada — some prefer a filling that's still slightly liquid in the center when cool, while others prefer it fully set; both are considered authentic depending on regional and family preference.
No — this is one of the most contested points in Canadian baking, and plenty of authentic recipes and bakeries make them entirely without raisins.
This usually means the pastry cups weren't sealed well at the seams, or they were overfilled — leave a little headspace since the filling bubbles up significantly during baking.
Per serving (55g / 1.9 oz) · 12 servings total
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