Top Ontario Culinary Tourism Award Finalists Include Kawartha Lakes Butter Tarts!

Kawartha - Northumberland Butter Tart Tour 2014 OCTA Award Finalist!

FTC Disclaimer: Posts on Kawartha Lakes Mums contain affiliate and sponsored links which help us put food on our table while sharing great deals with our readers.This does not affect our opinions. Kawartha Northumberland Butter Tart Tour is a finalist in both The Ontario Culinary Tourism Experience Award and the Ontario Culinary Tourism Leadership Awards. Wondering which Kawartha Lakes Butter Tarts are on the tour? Looking for tasty Butter Tart recipes? Looking for Butter Tart Trivia?
Glad you asked!

Butter Tarts - Truly Canadian Treat

Kawartha Lakes Butter Tart Tour features Best KAwartha Lakes Butter Tarts

Did you know butter tarts are unique to Canada? Apparently some believe Butter Tarts are historically from Ontario. In the CBC Radio Archive we discovered an interesting piece"What Makes A Good Butter Tart?" filled with interesting butter tart trivia.

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/lifestyle/food/my-canada-includes-tourtiere/what-makes-a-great-butter-tart.html

Butter Tart Recipes

My Nana, Mary Pollard, made THE world's best butter tarts. A former cook in some of the best homes in Toronto, her pastry was divinely flaky and the filling was just the perfect consistency not solid, but gooey enough to ooze out of the tart once bitten without rushing the feaster with a deluge of runny syrup.  You may have your druthers about butter tarts, but I believe a  perfect butter tart cannot be set on a plate once bitten, and the syrup should be thick enough to allow you to savour the experience. Since my first attempt to replicate Nana's culinary skills resulted in tart shells hard enough to use as hockey pucks - I think my brother might have even borrowed a few for slap shot practice; Nana shared one secret with me :

Always make your pastry when you're in a hurry - so you won't over handle it.

Basic Butter Tart Ingredients and Tools

Butter Tart Pastry: We discovered one butter tart recipe that in no way shape or form resembles a traditional butter tart recipe. It is egg-free, dairy -free, sugar-free, and gluten free! Most Butter Tart recipes have a pastry made of flour, salt, fat, and a sprinkle of ice water.  The pastry recipe that helped me win a first with an apple pie  is simple: 1 part fat to 2 parts pastry flour, a pinch of salt, and ice water to help it stick together. Some variations will use baking soda, baking powder, vinegar, or sour cream in the pastry recipe too.
Combining ingredients: I usually sift my flour and pinch of salt together using a pastry sifter. You can use a sieve and a spoon, but a flour sifter is a welcome tool in a baker's kitchen. To cut the butter into the flour, you can use two knives wedged between your fingers but a good pastry blender is much more efficient and makes pastry making much more enjoyable.

Chilling your dough before rolling it out for cutting can help increase your flaky factor, so can the right tools. My Nana had a glass rolling pin she filled with ice water this worked great until the lid was misplaced. I love using my marble rolling pin. Tart tins for your crust are very helpful to have , as I discovered when trying to bake pies and tarts in Germany. Do you have a favourite tart tin?
Here are some of my favourite Butter Tart Baking tools.

Best Butter Tart Filling Poll

Butter Tart Filling:
Are you familiar with Quebec Sugar Pie? Butter Tart Filling is very similar. Butter Tart fillings usually include the following ingredients that a farm would have on hand:

• butter, 
• sugar,  and 
• eggs. 

Different Butter Tart filling variations include: maple syrup, corn syrup, cream, condensed milk, vanilla, lemon juice, and even vinegar! Vinegar are lemon juice were used to cut the sweetness of the sugar.
Butter Tart Additions: Did you know there is a great debate over whether a butter tart should have raisins or any additions? There is a great debate whether to add other ingredients to your butter tart filling - raisins or not? Coconut or not? What is your opinion? Take our Butter Tart Poll
Additions you might find in butter tarts include:

• pecans,
• walnuts, 
• raisins, 
• chocolate chips, 
• bacon
• coconut
• blueberries

Tip: If adding raisins to your tarts, first let them plump up overnight in hot water. Personally, I prefer Thompson Raisins over other varieties.
Here is our growing pinterest board of butter tart recipes:
Follow Kawartha Lakes Mums's board Butter Tarts on Pinterest.

Kawartha Lakes Offers Delicious Butter Tarts on The Butter Tart Tour

Kawartha - Northumberland Butter Tart tour initially had two pre-requisites to be included in the Butter Tart Tour: You needed to bake the tarts on the premises, and have a place for people to sit and enjoy their butter tarts. Looking at the lists however, the "needing a place to sit and enjoy the tarts" bit seems to have been relaxed.

Where Are Kawartha Lakes Butter Tarts?

Kawartha Northumberland Butter Tart tour website, part of the Perfect Weekends website for RTO8, has several Butter Tart Tour Routes. Which Butter Tart TourRoute holds delicious Kawartha Lakes Butter Tarts? You might think our Kawartha Lakes butter tarts would be in the "Tart Me Up in the Kawartha's Route" - Nope only Peterborough area tarts there!
So where do you find Kawartha Lakes butter tarts?
Check out the Link -"To Your Tarts Content - Sturgeon Lakes Route". One of our readers remarked -"Ewwww sounds like a fishing tour - not very appetizing!" We agree - the name definitely could use some rebranding.

Award - Winning Kawartha Lakes Butter Tarts Left Off Map??

The "Official Route" for Kawartha Lakes Butter Tarts on the Butter Tart Tour website, only has nine of the fifteen butter tart designers from City of Kawartha Lakes, and they didn't even include the best better tart entry from City of Kawartha Lakes - South Pond Farm! South Pond Farm won second overall out of Northumberland, Peterborough and Kawartha Lakes for their delicious butter tarts. Due to this oversight, we created a Kawartha Lakes Butter Tart Tour with an interactive map that includes all the Kawartha Lakes Butter Tart Bakeries listed on the Butter Tart Tour site. The tour starts and ends at South Pond Farm Pontypool and has driving directions for the northbound leg and driving directions for the southbound leg. How many of these delicious stops can you make? We'd love to see your pictures!

Kawartha Lakes Butter Tart Tour Including Our Best Butter Tarts

Kawartha Lakes Mums Butter Tart Bakery Tour includes:
Lindsay Butter Tart Bakers

• Kawartha Wholesale Bakery 
• Pantry Shelf  
• ShirLee’s Bakery 

Fenelon Falls Butter Tart Bakers

• Eganridge Inn & Spa 
• Little Pie Shack  
• Sweet Bottoms Coffee  

Bobcaygeon Butter Tart Bakers

•  Bobcaygeon Bread Company (Seasonal)

 Butter Tart Tour - 9 More Easy to Add Village Bakeries

The following Butter Tart Bakers are listed on the Butter Tart Tour Website as "9 More Easy to Add Bakeries." If they're easy to add why weren't they added? Seems odd to me. These are the easy to add bakeries listed on their site.:

• Pontypool South Pond Farms - Award-winning butter tarts
• Sebright Quaker Oaks Farm 
• Little Britain Buttertarts ‘N More  
• Argyle Argyle Farm Market (Seasonal) 
• The Argyle General Store 
• Woodville Zehr Farm Fresh Produce and Bakery (Seasonal) 
• Kirkfield Kirkfield Restaurant
• Burnt River Harmony Farm  
• Coboconk Coffee Junction

About the Ontario Tourism Culinary Awards

The Northumberland - Kawartha Lakes Tourism Association is a finalist in the 2014 Ontario Culinary Awards for the Ontario Culinary Tourism Experience Award. [When we first looked at the website, it appeared they had won.] This award recognizes an Ontario organization or business that delivers an authentic consumer experience showcasing Ontario food and beverage. Nominations needed to clearly demonstrate innovation in showcasing authentic culinary experiences in their region/destination.When you check out the Butter Tart Tour website, you can see what an amazing job they did creating Butter Tart Tours of each separate area, and even an option for individuals to create their our Butter Tart Tour.  The Butter Tart Tour Taste Off is getting bigger and better each year. In 2013, it was held in Peterborough, 2014 was Kawartha Lakes turn, so 2015 watch for the taste off to be held in Northumberland County.
Northumberland - Kawartha Lakes Tourism Association is also a finalist for the 2014 Ontario Culinary Awards for the Ontario Culinary Tourism Experience Award. This award recognizes an Ontario organization, collaborative group or community who has or is working on developing a destination through investment in culinary tourism.
Congratulations to the RTO8 tourism team on all the hard work that has gone into developing the Butter Tart Tour! We look forward to it becoming a must do tourism attraction for our area.

Butter Tarts - Your Turn!

Do you have a favourite butter tart recipe?
Drop us a comment, or connect with us in one of these ways. We love hearing from our readers!:

• Send us a voice message
• Kawartha Lakes Mums Facebook Page, 
• @KawarthaMums Twitter,
• Kawartha Lakes Mums Youtube for Insider Secrets 
• Kawartha Lakes Mums Pinterest
• Kawartha Lakes Mums G+

Thanks for Reading Kawartha Lakes Mums! Be sure to  Subscribe to Kawartha Lakes Mums you never know what we'll be blogging next!
Kawartha Lakes Butter Tart Related Links
Any adfly links below will open with a word from a sponsor to help cover expenses. Click the "Skip Ad" Button when it appears in the top right corner to proceed to the webpage. Find out more at : http://adf.ly/?id=4009826 Want a direct link? Ask about a free link exchange or sponsoring a post.

• Ontario Culinary Tourism Awards http://adf.ly/4009826/ontario-culinary-tourism-finalists
• Kawartha Northumberland Butter Tart Tour http://adf.ly/4009826/kawartha-northumberland-butter-tart-tour