North America

Butter Tarts: Canada's Sweet Baked Filling in Pastry

Name: Butter Tarts: Canada's Sweet Baked Filling in Pastry
Prep time: 1 h 10 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 1 h 55 min
Yield: 12 servings
Cuisine: Canadian (Ontario)
Ingredients: 190 g Cake or all-purpose flour; 2 g Salt; 125 g Unsalted butter; 55–65 ml Ice water; 1 tsp (5 ml) Apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar; 140 g Brown sugar or raw cane sugar; 120 g Maple syrup; 70 g Unsalted butter; 2 (about 100 g net) Eggs; 2/3 tbsp (10 ml) Apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar; 2 g Salt; 60 g Raisins; 40 g Currants; 60 g Unsalted walnuts

Make Canada's Ontario favorite, butter tarts, in a batch of 12. Covers the regional variations with raisins and walnuts, maple syrup substitutes, lining the pans, judging doneness by the wobble of the center, rescuing mistakes, and storage and allergies. Also includes the local history and the ingredients worth sourcing.

Published: October 25, 2026Total: 1 hr 55 minLevel: Intermediate

Cooking flow

Cooking steps

STEP 11 / 6

Make the dough crumbly and chill it

35 min

Butter tart dough with bits of cold butter remaining — Make a crumbly dough with the butter remaining in small pieces

Mix 190 g flour and 2 g salt in a bowl and add 125 g cold unsalted butter. Crush it with your fingertips into a state like damp sand, with the butter remaining in pieces from rice-grain to adzuki-bean size. Add 55 ml ice water and 5 ml vinegar and press together while a little dry flour still shows. If much dry flour remains, add ice water up to 10 ml more. Don't knead it smooth; shape it into a flat disc, wrap in plastic and rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

STEP 22 / 6

Roll out the dough and line the pan

35 min

Butter tart shells with dough lined into a 12-cup muffin pan — Roll the dough, line the pan, and chill it without pulling

Divide the chilled dough into 12 and roll each piece on a lightly floured surface to 10 cm across and about 3 mm thick. Place it in the muffin pan and press the bottom and sides lightly against the pan with the pads of your fingers. Pulling the edge thin makes it shrink while baking, so don't push in leftover dough; cut it off at the rim of the pan. Don't prick the bottom with a fork, because filling will leak. Return the whole pan to the refrigerator and chill for 30 minutes.

STEP 33 / 6

Prepare the dried fruit and filling

25 min

Maple-colored filling with soaked raisins and chopped walnuts — Mix the syrup and eggs without making foam, and combine the fillings last

Pour boiling water over 60 g raisins and 40 g currants, leave for 20 minutes, drain in a strainer, and wipe the surface moisture with paper towels. Chop 60 g walnuts to about 5 mm. In a separate bowl, gently mix 140 g brown sugar, 120 g maple syrup, 70 g melted butter, 2 eggs, 10 ml vinegar and 2 g salt so it doesn't gain foam. When the sugar grains have disappeared and it is a smooth, flowing liquid, add the walnuts and fruit and stop.

STEP 44 / 6

Pour in the filling two-thirds to three-quarters full

10 min

Twelve unbaked butter tarts with the filling poured in — Leave 5 mm at the rim and distribute the fruit and walnuts evenly

Into the chilled shells, first divide the raisins, currants and walnuts evenly. Pour in 40 to 45 g filling per tart, two-thirds to three-quarters of the depth of the cup, leaving about 5 mm from the rim. If the fruit gathers to one side, move it with chopsticks, but don't keep stirring to pop the bubbles. Fill it to the top and during baking the swelling liquid goes over the edge and sets between the pastry and the pan.

STEP 55 / 6

Bake at 180°C until the center wobbles

20–25 min

Butter tarts baking in the oven — Bake until the edges are golden, leaving a wobble at the center

Preheat the oven to 180°C and put the pan toward the lower rack. Check at 20 minutes: take it out if the edge of the pastry is golden, fine bubbles appear on the surface of the filling and it is a deep amber, and when you shake the pan lightly only the center sets like jelly while trembling. If the liquid moves so much that the whole surface ripples, extend by 3 minutes at a time. If the edges darken first, drape aluminum foil loosely over them. Even the standard Canadian formulas give 20 to 25 minutes at 180°C as a guide, but it varies with the depth of the pan and the quirks of the oven.

STEP 66 / 6

Cool in the pan, then remove

30 min

Baked butter tarts cooling in the pan — Rest 20 minutes in the pan and remove after the center has set

Set the baked pan on a rack and let it cool as it is for 20 minutes. Lift it while hot and the still-soft center pushes the pastry outward. Run a thin knife along the rim of the pan, remove the tarts one at a time and cool 10 more minutes. They are done when the center feels lukewarm to the touch, the surface does not run, and the bottom is firm enough to lift. If it has set too hard, leave it at room temperature for 15 minutes before eating and the butter aroma returns.

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Ingredients

1 / 2

Pastry

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Cake or all-purpose flour	190 g	All-purpose gives a little more bite. Bread flour alone tends to shrink
Salt	2 g	Tightens the outline of the sweetness
Unsalted butter	125 g	Cut into 1 cm cubes and chill until just before use
Ice water	55–65 ml	Add a little at a time, watching how dry the flour is
Apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar	1 tsp (5 ml)	Keeps the dough from tightening too much; if you have none, increase the ice water by the same amount

2 / 2

Filling

Ingredient	Amount	Substitutes & notes
Brown sugar or raw cane sugar	140 g	It bakes with white sugar alone, but the molasses aroma is weaker
Maple syrup	120 g	Golden syrup or corn syrup in the same amount. The aroma changes
Unsalted butter	70 g	Melted and cooled to 40°C or below
Eggs	2 (about 100 g net)	Cracked and beaten, not too cold
Apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar	2/3 tbsp (10 ml)	Tightens the sweetness. The acidity doesn't remain strongly once baked
Salt	2 g	Reduce to 1 g with salted butter
Raisins	60 g	Seedless. Soak in boiling water for 20 minutes and wipe dry
Currants	40 g	You may replace them with 60 g raisins
Unsalted walnuts	60 g	Chopped to about 5 mm. Can be omitted for no nuts

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Ontario's home sweet even includes whether it has a filling in its name

A butter tart fresh from the oven still trembles quietly at the center alone. Even if it looks liquid, don't rush to bake it more; let it rest 20 minutes in the pan. When the egg-and-butter filling settles, the edge is crumbly and the center has the texture of a thick, custard-like cream.

A table with butter tarts filled with maple-colored filling arranged on a plate — Freshly baked, the center wobbles; as it cools, a butter tart sets thick and dense

A butter tart is a Canadian sweet in which butter, eggs, sugar and syrup are poured into a small pastry shell and baked. The version with raisins or currants and walnuts is well known, but whether to add fruit, whether to add nuts, and how much of a runny center to leave vary from home to home and shop to shop.

What people tend to hesitate over when making it at home is less whether to use maple syrup than how far to bake the filling. Overbake it and the firmness of the egg comes forward; take it out early and it can't be removed from the pan. Roll the pastry thin, don't overfill, and stop where the center wobbles like jelly, and you can approach the "custardy" mouthfeel described in Canadian recipes.

This formula is a home version baked in a 12-cup muffin pan. Rather than the lard seen in historical recipes, the pastry is made with easy-to-find butter alone, and the filling is built from maple syrup, raisins, currants and walnuts. If you prioritize aroma, use maple; for a plainer, lighter sweetness, you can swap in golden syrup or corn syrup.

Unlike a savory pie such as tourtière, a festive dish, the butter tart is a small baked sweet to set beside coffee or tea. The home-snack character lies in making each one a size where everyone can bring their own sweet center, rather than making the baked-sweet plate bigger.

The origin of the butter tart can't easily be traced back to a single inventor. UBC's Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles notes that a 1900 cookbook compiled by the Women's Auxiliary of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie includes a "Filling for Tarts" using sugar, butter, eggs and currants. At the same time, because recipes passed on through family oral tradition and handwritten cards may be older than print, it treats this not as the "origin" in Canada but as a history of record and preservation.

Food Day Canada's introduction to the history also mentions the 1900 Barrie cookbook, the 1908 Vogue Cook Book and a 1911 cookbook for Canadian farm households. The 1908 record uses sugar, butter, eggs, currants and salt, and in 1911 several formulas were collected from around Ontario. That it could be made with the ingredients on hand in a farm household, butter, eggs, sugar, flour and pastry lard, is one reason the differences between households remained.

The name is understood across Canada, but is especially tied to Ontario, and the DCHP-3 explains that there are also uses in Manitoba, Nova Scotia, the Yukon and elsewhere. A relationship with sweet tarts similar to French-Canadian tarte au sucre has also been pointed out, but those often use no eggs, and it is not so simple as to decide they are the same sweet.

Regional differences show up on the counter rather than on the map's borders. An Ontario introduction lists options such as classic, raisin, pecan and maple walnut, and in Kawarthas Northumberland, a butter tart tour visiting more than 50 bakeries, cafés and restaurants is advertised. The tour has run since 2011, and the home sweet has grown into a food culture of visiting town bakeries.

So rather than splitting it into "raisins are the real thing" and "nuts are heresy," choosing by texture is more practical. Raisins and currants scatter a soft sweet-sourness, and walnuts place a small bitterness and bite in the liquid center. With nothing added the smoothness of egg and syrup comes forward, and swapping in pecans strengthens the toasty aroma. The butter tart is a sweet in which even whether it has a filling becomes a household's memory.

The axis to keep in a home kitchen is not to copy exactly the origin of the maple or the shape of the pan. It is to keep the roughly 3 mm pastry cold, to let the egg set against the sweetness of the syrup, and to preserve the softness while it cools. To make Canadian food more as a meal, putting a chicken-and-potato soup from the same east, like fricot, alongside makes clearer what it means to put a sweet little plate at the end of the table.

The pattern of this recipe

Rather than reproducing an early historical recipe as is, it recomposes for home use the flow confirmed in official recipes: "12 tarts, 10 cm pastry, 20 to 25 minutes at 180°C, removed after cooling." The pastry uses no lard, and the filling combines maple syrup with raisins, currants and walnuts.

Ingredients: 12 to take up the liquid's sweetness

Flour, butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, eggs, dried fruit and walnuts for butter tarts — Divide the ingredients into pastry and filling, and sort out the moisture of the dried fruit first

Use a 12-cup muffin pan with 7.5 to 8 cm cups. If the pan is shallow, some filling will be left over, so don't force it all in, and don't bake it in an empty ovenproof dish. If egg-containing liquid spills outside the pan, it scorches easily before the bottom of the pastry sets.

Putting in 100 g of raisins and currants in total scatters the sourness of fruit through the sweet liquid. Canadian recipes include formulas combining currants, golden raisins and walnuts, and the home recipe at Food Day Canada uses raisins with walnuts or pecans. Prioritizing what is easy to find, swapping currants for raisins does not change the name of the sweet.

For maple syrup, use not a flavored pancake syrup but one that lists maple syrup as the main ingredient. When you want to keep the aroma, use pure maple syrup; when you want a stable sweetness and stickiness, golden syrup or corn syrup. Swapping to the latter gives the milder syrup taste also seen in modern Canadian home recipes.

It uses wheat, milk, egg and walnuts. Even if you swap walnuts for pecans or seeds, with a nut allergy watch for contamination from the same equipment. Check that commercial syrup and dried fruit do not contain milk or wheat on their ingredient labels.

Whether to buy extra walnuts

For a raisin-only butter tart, it works without walnuts. When making a walnut version, choose unsalted ones with no old-oil smell when opened as your basis. If you need only 60 g, buying a small bag nearby wastes less, and if you will also use them in other baked sweets or salads, choosing about 200 g online makes sense. On the product page, check for an "unsalted" label and the quantity.

If you bake the plain version without walnuts, or want to finish buying with just these 12, you can make it with what you have on hand.

Method: 6 steps that leave the wobble in the center

Do not boil the filling. Don't whip the eggs too much, keep the pastry cold, and let the liquid set slowly in a 180°C oven. Judging by browning alone can leave the center runny though the edges are done, so look at the state at each step.

Adjustments and storage so the bake doesn't go wrong

A cross-section of a cooled butter tart with a softly set center — The center can be cut, yet has a softness that melts in the mouth

When the filling runs

If the center runs onto the plate even after it has cooled completely, first suspect insufficient cooling. Wait 30 minutes at room temperature, and if the liquid still comes back, return the tarts to the pan and bake for just 5 to 8 minutes more at 160°C. If the color of the surface is already enough, cover with foil. If the egg is still weak after reheating, next time reduce the amount poured per tart to 40 g, and rather than stopping the bake at 20 minutes, check the movement of the center.

When the filling gets hard

If you baked it to a state where the center no longer moves, the firmness of the egg gets stronger as it cools. It isn't a failure you can't eat, but it moves away from the thick aftertaste of a butter tart. Next time, rather than taking it out by color, stop at the stage where only the central 5 cm trembles when you shake the pan.

When the pastry shrinks or the bottom is damp

The main causes are one of these: you pulled the dough when pressing it into the pan, you skipped the chilling time, the amount of filling was large, or you didn't wipe the moisture from the soaked dried fruit. If you have extra dough, don't roll it out; use it to thicken the sides. Dry the surface of moist fruit before putting it in the filling, and divide the fruit first before pouring so liquid doesn't pool at the bottom.

Changing the syrup and fillings

Change	Result	Judgment
Maple syrup	A woody aroma with a slight bitterness	Choose it when you want the aroma to be the star
Golden syrup or corn syrup	Rounder sweetness and a milder syrup aroma	Replace in the same amount if you don't keep maple on hand
Raisins only	Soft fruitiness with no walnut bitterness	Use for nut allergies or adjusting for children
Walnuts only	Toastiness and bite come forward	Choose when you don't want to add fruity sweet-sourness
Change to pecans	A stronger aroma and more of the richness of baked sweets	Same amount as walnuts. Enjoy it as a different nut
No filling added	The smoothness of egg and butter is the center	Good when you first want to check how the filling sets

Swapping maple syrup for honey changes not only the amount of sweetness but the direction of the aroma. Honey often has a strong floral aroma, so if you want to get closer to the Canadian butter tart, golden syrup keeps the axis of taste better. You can also make modern variations that add chocolate or coconut, but for a first batch, give priority to how sugar, egg and syrup set.

Storage and when to eat

Canadian recipes advise storing baked tarts in a single layer in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 24 hours. If you will finish them by the next day, put them in a container after cooling completely, and in a hot room or on a long trip, switch to refrigeration. For refrigerated ones, leaving them out at room temperature 15 to 20 minutes before eating brings back the butter aroma and the softness of the center.

If you baked many and have leftovers, cool them completely, wrap each one, and put them in the freezer. Thaw in the refrigerator and then move to room temperature, sealed so the surface doesn't dry. Because this is a sweet made with egg and dairy, if you are concerned about odor transfer or temperature changes, finish them soon whether refrigerated or frozen.

FAQ

Can't I make it without maple syrup?

You can use golden syrup or corn syrup in the same amount. The sweetness and thickness come close, but the woody aroma is weaker. Swapping to sugar alone changes the amount and thickness of the liquid and it won't bake the same, so first choose a syrup-like substitute.

Is it still a butter tart without raisins?

Raisins, currants and nuts are commonly used fillings, but they are not necessarily required by the definition of the name. The DCHP-3 definition also says "often with raisins or nuts added," and there are home versions with no filling and shops with nuts alone. If you leave out the fillings, the liquid doesn't gather unevenly, so pour about 40 g per tart as a guide.

May I remove them right after baking?

Avoid it. If you remove them before the filling sets, the thin pastry tears and the center runs. Aim for 20 minutes in the pan and 10 more on a rack. The cooling time is part of the cooking.

What if I have only tart pans, not a muffin pan?

Use twelve shallow tart pans of about 10 cm, or make one in a shallow 20 cm pan. But combining into one makes the center thicker, which changes the baking time and the wobble. The 12-cup pan lets you use this article's amounts and the 20 to 25 minute guide as they are.

What can I use in place of walnuts?

You can use pecans, almonds or pumpkin seeds in the same amount. But nuts and seeds differ in aroma, oiliness and allergen labeling, so it is not a reproduction of the walnut version. If you avoid nuts, omit the filling or use seeds whose allergen labels you have checked, and wash the equipment again.

Sources

Food Day Canada: Recipe for Butter Tarts (history and a home recipe; accessed and checked 2026-08-14)
DCHP-3, University of British Columbia: butter tart (distribution of the word, the 1900 printed record, treatment of origins; accessed and checked 2026-08-14)
Destination Ontario: Popular Canadian food to try in Ontario (Ontario food culture, filling variations, an introduction to a tour of more than 50 places; accessed and checked 2026-08-14)
Destination Ontario: Kawarthas Northumberland Butter Tart Tour (the tour's region, participating shops, history since 2011; accessed and checked 2026-08-14)
Canadian Living: Best Maple Butter Tarts (a 12-tart formula, 20 to 25 minutes at 180°C, cooling, storage, the basis for the nutrition values; accessed and checked 2026-08-14)
Canadian Living: The anatomy of a perfect butter tart (regional differences in pastry and filling; accessed and checked 2026-08-14)
Five Roses: Butter Tarts (a 12-tart formula using maple syrup, walnuts, currants and raisins; accessed and checked 2026-08-14)

Note: the nutrition values are an estimate converted to the whole batch from the per-tart values in Canadian Living's 12-tart formula. They vary with the products used for sugar, butter, syrup, dried fruit and nuts.