Butter Tarts

Submitted by Kim738

"Very simple and everyone seems to love them. I like my butter tarts runny. I have to confess, that as a child, I liked to dip my finger in and eat up all of the filling before eating the crust. Recipe calls for raisins but can be cooked without. From an old Chatelaines cookbook. Pastry is simply a Crisco recipe. Works the best for me."

 

• Ready In: 35mins
• Ingredients: 15
• Yields: 12 tarts
• Serves: 12

ingredients

• Pastry

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3⁄4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup shortening
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar

• Filling

• 1⁄3 cup soft butter
• 1⁄2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 cup corn syrup
• 1⁄8 teaspoon salt
• 2 slightly beaten eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 -2 teaspoon vinegar or 1 -2 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 1 dash cinnamon (optional) or 1 dash allspice (optional)
• 3⁄4 cup steamed seedless raisin (optional)

directions

1. Pastry:

2. Combine flour and salt in mixing bowl. Cut room temperature shortning into flour with pastry blender or two knives until mixture is uniform and shortening resembles large peas.
3. Beat egg, water and vinegar together to blend. Pour all of the liquid evenly over flour mixture. Stir with fork until all of mixture is moistened.
4. Divide dough in half and shape each into a ball. Flatten each into a circle. Place one circle of dough between 2 pieces of wax paper and roll out until dough is sufficient to use in a 9" pie plate. Cut out circles of dough to fit your muffin tins. Place into greased muffin tins and shape.

5. Filling:

6. Cream the butter, sugar, corn syrup and salt together, stir in beaten eggs, vanilla, vinegar and spice. (Do not use a beater to combine filling ingredients. Beating makes mixture too frothy with air.) Pour boiling water over raisins and let stand 10 minutes; then drain and dry. Filling is sufficient to fill approximately 14-15 medium size tart shells. Sprinkle 2 tsps. raisins in the bottom of each shell, and spoon or pour the filling in until shells are 2/3 full. Bake at 400°F 10 minutes; reduce heat to 350°F and bake 5-10 minutes longer or until pastry is golden.
7. For runny type tarts make shells deep and use the above filling.
8. For firmly set tarts use 3/4 cup brown sugar and 3/4 cup corn syrup and have unbaked shells quite shallow.