Easy Homemade Butter Tarts | Only 3 Ingredients! (2024)

Homemade Butter Tarts.

This post was originally published in November 2015 and updated on June 24, 2018.

An awesome family favorite, the Butter Tart is the number 1 tart in our family! Did you know that Butter Tarts are uniquely Canadian and this gooey confection is often judged by its syrup factor. If the the syrup runs up your arm as you try to eat it, you know you have a winner!

For those of you who love butter tarts and syrupy desserts, be sure to visit our Easy Chocolate Pecan Pie – just like a huge Pecan Butter Tart!

Why there are even Butter Tart Tours so that you can do a day trip and eat your way through dozens of butter tart bakeries! Check out the Kawartha Butter Tart Tour, even a Butter Tart Festival! Wowser!

Our Cranberry Cherry Tarts With Almond Glaze is another favorite from Grandma’s recipe files. It’s just so perfect, especially around the holidays!

Homemade Butter Tarts come with raisin or without, with pecans, walnuts. I prefer the classics, no fruit or nuts for me! And you can get them just about anywhere – at the grocer, convenience store, restaurants, diners and now even coffee stores. I must admit I can rarely resist just having one. They are quite calorie friendly too – about 300 caloriesper tart for the regular sized ones – and loaded with – you guessed it! Sugar.

There are lots of great recipes out there and its fun to try new ones, like this one I found on food.com – it’s kind of cool and gives a really good history of the butter tart and its Canadian roots!

Homemade Butter tarts are a Canadian tradition. In my family the Butter Tartisknown as a Honey Tart and such a rare treat that it was always coveted and one just wouldn’t do. My Grandma would always have a dozen or so freshly baked tarts on hand and would laugh out loud at the expressions on our faces.

The combination of the sweet sticky filling and the melt in your mouth flaky pie crust far surpassed any of the store bought treats consumers load up on today. All by using a simple pastry recipe and being creative with eggs, brown sugar and vanilla.

Yes that’s all it takes. And the secret ingredient? Well that’s easy – love. In the case of my siblings and I – from our Mom and Grandmother – because Mom would make these deliciously sweet mini pies for special occasions too!

So here it is – passed down by fourgenerations….to you!

Homemade Butter Tarts

12 small tart shells using my pastry recipe–Tip: I grease the tinwith shortening, as this will help to ease the tarts out of the tart tin. (You can use a small muffin tin as well)

• 1 egg
• one cup Brown sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla

Pour the filling into the tart shells about 2/3 full. Bake in the bottom third of an oven at 350F for 20 – 30 minutes. Let cool and enjoy!