If you’ve been tuning into my blog on the regular over the last few years, you no doubt know quite a few things about me; I like simple recipes, I enjoy cooking with seasonal ingredients, I’m a huge proponent of organic food, and I have a weakness for butter tarts. A few years back I made a batch of butter tart squares that made it onto my go-to recipe list, but this new recipe is even better and will be replacing the old one. Why? Because it makes a 9x13 pan instead of a 9x9 for starters, that’s an extra 4 inches of gooey goodness! I think the texture is a little smoother than the other recipe and finally the filling to crust ratio is on point.
Let them cool completely and then keep in the refrigerator until needed. In case you can't tell from the image above, I cut the pieces rather small, about 1" by 1", with a chef knife after a night in the fridge.
Butter Tart Squares
Base
3 cups flour
3⁄4 cup granulated sugar
3⁄4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cold butter, cut into cubes
Filling
5 large eggs
2 ¼ cups packed brown sugar
1 ½ cups raisins (optional and not recommended, yuck)
½ cup + 1 Tbsp melted butter
3 tsp flour
3 tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
Preheat oven to 350 ̊F.
Line a 9”x13” pan with parchment.
First prepare Base:
Pulse dry ingredients in food processor. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles a crumb-like texture. Alternatively, cut the butter in with a pastry cutter (this is what I did).
Press into prepared pan and bake for 18 minutes.
Prepare filling while base bakes.
Filling:
Whisk all ingredients together (except raisins) until frothy. Then stir in raisins.
When base comes out of oven, immediately pour filling over the hot base. Spread evenly (redistributing raisins if necessary). Bake for 25-30 minutes or until set.