I whipped up a batch using **GingerOfTheNorth’s ** recipe and took them to a BBQ at a friend’s place last night.
The unanimous verdict?
Nice, but much too sweet.
Mmm, butter tarts.
Maybe they’re an acquired taste. I’ve enjoyed them since I was a child and have also been known to eat a few at one sitting, but my American-born-and-raised wife can only handle about one before she ODs on the sweetness. It took her a while to work her way up to one, by the way.
Gotta try that recipe myself. Looks easy enough for me to do.
One of the guests at Monday night’s BBQ has just emailed me, asking for the recipe for the butter tarts. So Canadian cuisine has made at least one Australian convert.
I made them, too, and they were very good, although very sweet. The kind you buy at the store or bakery has a different kind of texture to the filling, and it isn’t nearly as sweet. I wish I knew how the make them that way.
Well… yeah. That’s the point.
Maybe you need to hew some wood or draw some water beforehand.
I walked 6 kms to the BBQ. That should have been sufficient. 
Congratulation on your successful introduction to Canadian cuisine. Your next assignment, if you chose to accept it, is to make a tourtière du Lac St-Jean. Don’t forget to use ground meats. If you use cubed meats, an alternate version is to make six layers of pastry (alternate version) with a different meat (especially good with game meats) in between each layer.
Butter tarts ought not to be too sweet. (They are properly enjoyed with coffee that’s as black as sin and twice as bitter, and they should be just sweet enough to offset that.)
Nanaimo bars, on the other hand, should be much too sweet. Mmmmm.
Ah, yes. New Democrat coffee: thick enough to float a horseshoe.
I hate to tell you this, Cunctator, but my recipe isn’t even as sweet as most. :eek: I would just cut back the sugar a little bit and see if you like it that way.
Canadians: Really. It’s NOT too sweet. It’s not the gooey drippy type of filling you’ll get at the store. Certainly not as sweet as tarte a sucre (pardon my lack of accents).
Cunctator, how do they compare to things we’re familiar with - those little egg tarts you get at yum cha, snot blocks and those little Portugese tarts?
Next time, bring poutine. Assuming you have a source of styrofoam tubs.
All hail the marvels of squeaky cheese… mmmmm poutine…
Do you know, the other night I told Dave I wanted poutine. And he offered to get the fixins for it and make it for me. I told him I couldn’t eat it, I just wanted it. Damn this pregnancy weight!
Can you get curd where you are?
I’m vaguely troubled – making poutine at home just seems so <i>wrong</i>. 
I don’t honestly know. We’d use mozzarella, if we couldn’t find it. It’d still have some of that saltiness and the stretchy yum of the curd, but not as salty.
I suppose a Beavertail is out of the question too then?
Mmmmm buttered garlic tail followed by maple tail…
Curse you.
Personally, I think Beaver Tails have gone downhill since they expanded from just that one stall at the Byward Market…
Also, mozzarella on cheese curds? :covers eyes: I bet you weren’t even planning to be drunk when you ate them, either, were you?
- haardvark, junk food imperialist.