My Mum’s Prized Butter Tarts

This recipe was on our old web-site and we’ve had lots of requests for it to be reposted on the new site. It was one of my Mum’s best recipes and she always made the tarts at Christmas time or when I went back to England to visit. They were a special treat. (Butter tarts are a type of small pastry that is primarily eaten in and associated with the English-speaking provinces of Canada. It is thought they were common in pioneer times.)

Pastry:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ cup of unsalted butter

½ cup lard About

1 cup of ice- cold water

1. Put first five ingredients in a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs.
2. Empty into a large bowl. Add the flour, a little at a time, using just enough to bind the mixture.
3. Collect all moistened particles into a ball. With as little handling as possible, form dough into a round disk.
4. Place on a lightly floured surface. It should be soft enough not to break when it is rolled. Handle the pastry as little as possible. Kneading will toughen it.
5. Roll with a light even pressure to a thickness of ¼ inch.
6. Cut into 3-inch circles and line tartlet pans. 

Butter Tart Mixture:

1/3 cup unsalted butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 beaten large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ cup currants

1. Preheat oven to 450˚F
2. Mix all the ingredients together and place a heaped teaspoon of the mixture into tartlet pans that have been lined with pastry.
3. Put on center rack in the oven. Bake at 450˚F degrees for eight minutes.
4. Reduce to 350˚F degrees and bake until the pastry is lightly browned.
5. Remove tartlet pan from oven and place on cooling rack for about ten minutes.