Our entire family of cousins loved our Grandma Fern for countless reasons, but most of all because she had a way of making sure we knew she loved each and every one of us.
Carrrie’s Grandma Fern
In her early 20’s, Grandma Fern became a single mother of three small children at a time when single moms weren’t exactly embraced in small town Canada. Grandma mentioned that her parents sent her brother to university, but that since she was a girl, she was only able to have piano lessons. So all in all, it couldn’t have been easy for her to make ends meet way back then, with three wee ones and just a high school education.
No doubt she faced challenges, but somehow those challenges didn’t seem to get in the way of her love of a good joke or her interest in current events, the world of politics and of course sports (especially hockey). Which I guess are some of the other reasons that we all loved her so much.
Grandma Fern’s kitchen was a narrow galley, no bigger than a modern-day clothes closet. But out of that tiny kitchen came the most amazing butter tarts- or ‘taffy tarts’ as she called them. Needless to say, they were full of ingredients that are frowned on these days, you know- sugar and lard, white flour and all. But hey- file these babies in the ‘special treat’ category and enjoy them only on very special occasions.
You only live once. I’m so glad we asked her for her recipe.
Preset oven – 410F.
Ingredients for the pastry:
- 5 Cups unbleached flour
- 1 pound lard
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 1 egg
Beat egg and vinegar together in a one cup measure. Add enough cold water to to fill up the cup.
Meanwhile mix flour and the other dry ingredients together. Add the lard to the dry ingredients using a pastry blender or two table knives, until the flour mixture resembles small peas.
Gather the dough into five balls, wrap in waxed paper and refrigerate for at least two hours.
Once pastry has been chilled, use a rolling pin to roll it out between two sheets of waxed paper. Use a pastry cutter to cut the pastry into 4″ circles, or big enough to fit your muffin tins. You may have to experiment with this a bit.
Ingredients for the filling:
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 Ready for the oven |
Put the raisins in a heatproof bowl and cover with hot water. Let stand for 30 minutes.
Mix the rest of the filling ingredients together with a wooden spoon.
Drain the raisins and distribute them equally into the pastry shells in the muffin tins.
Then pour the filling over the raisins.
Bake tarts in the preheated (410F) oven for 8-10 minutes or until bubbly. Reduce oven temperature to 350F and bake for another 18 minutes.
Remove tarts from the oven to cool before carefully lifting each one from from the tins.
And oh yes, try to eat just one.
Hot from the oven