WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE TRADITIONAL DISH IN YOUR COUNTRY|| Canadian Butter Tart || @dwarrilow2002

Finally a challenge I can sink my teeth into!!! Here is a nod to @olabillions who is promoting this challenge. Canada is a country that draws its people from cultures found around the world. Consequently, what might be traditional in one neighbourhood would be completely foreign in an adjoining neighbourhood. When I was a child, our family went for dinner at a friend of my father. At his table were people speaking six different languages. The guests couldn't speak to each other (although I think my father had a little Spanish) so the host interceded, translating several conversations at the time. Such diversity doesn't bode well for a single traditional dish.

There is one pastry that can be said to have a unique place in Canadian palate - the Butter Tart. While butter tarts were probably quite common in Ontario, a recipe was first published in 1900.

Source

There are two aspects of butter tarts: the pastry and the filling. I don't do desserts but I have tried to make tarts. I tried when I had stepdaughters and one boyfriend was a teen and the other was in his twenties. I tried a couple of batches (neither met my standard) and the boyfriends were more than willing to eat my failures. In order to make a good pastry you need to have cold hands otherwise it isn't as flaky. My grandmother made perfect pastry. I have hot hands. In Canada you can buy frozen tart and pie shells in the grocery store, but they use vegetable shortening so the texture and taste cannot compare. I don't know what people would normally use for a crust on their desserts but you can follow the recommendations in the video below or if you have puff pastry in your store it simplifies the process. I've never tried this nor have I ever seen it attempted but it is possible that you could cook the filling, cool it and then pour it into meringue bowls.

The filling starts with 1/2 teaspoon for vanilla, 1/2 cup for butter, 1 cup of sugar, and two eggs. If you want to make maple syrup butter tarts, you omit the vanilla and replace 1/2 cup of sugar for an equal measure of maple syrup. Some recipes also use corn syrup, golden syrup, molasses, or possibly honey. As I said, I've only tried to make it twice and I only used one cup of sugar.

I am a purist and the tarts my mother made never had anything beyond the foundation. She would also time the cooking so the sugar never fully caramelized to solidity. Hers were truly gooey tarts. When you bit into one of her tarts, you inevitably had to balance the tart to prevent a sweet syrup from making your fingers sticky.

There are multiple camps with multiple opinions when it comes to tarts. Do you leave them plain or add fruit or nuts. Even the size of the pastry shell comes into play. I like a larger tart with more filling per bite than pastry. The following video breaks all the rules but even so, I would be more than willing to complain about how it isn't the way I like tarts, as I ate my third or fourth one.

I invite @jobreyes24, @ozenozge, and @madilyn02 to participate in this challenge. Details on the requirements are found in this challenge article: WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE TRADITIONAL DISH IN YOUR COUNTRY by @olabillions.

I am not as interested in winning as actually talking about tarts. I would remind my invitees that flair is considered in selecting the winner.

In choosing of the winners of this contest, uniqueness, content quality, use of markdowns style will be put into consideration in other to acknowledge any user as one of the winners