I’m still staying home and still baking. Luckily, I was able to buy a large bag of flour when the pandemic was starting to ramp up, and my baking cupboard was well-stocked.
I’ve also been using bits of leftovers that were stored in the freezer.
For dessert with our Easter Sunday dinner, I baked butter tarts from my mother’s recipe, a family favourite. They weren’t as good as hers used to be as I overbaked them slightly, but they did taste fine.
The inspiration: I found eight rounds of pie pastry, cut to size for tart shells, in the freezer. Since the recipe for tart filling makes enough for 15 tarts, I made half a batch. I used an all-butter pastry for the tart shells; Mom used the recipe on the lard box for hers.
A note on substitutions: when she didn’t have lemon juice on hand, Mom would use a teaspoonful of white vinegar instead.
Here’s the recipe I used for the filling.
Annabel’s Butter Tarts
- 50 mL (¼ cup) soft butter
- 125 mL (½ cup) brown sugar
- 250 mL (1 cup) corn syrup
- 2 lightly beaten eggs
- 5 mL (1 tsp) vanilla extract
- 5 mL (1 tsp) lemon juice
- raisins, to taste
Preheat oven to 190 C (375 F)
Cream together soft butter and brown sugar.
Combine corn syrup, eggs, vanilla extract and lemon juice, and stir into butter/brown sugar mixture.
Stir in raisins. (I used raisins and coarsely chopped pecans.)
Spoon mixture into prepared tart shells, until about 2/3 full.
Bake for 15-20 minutes.
Makes enough for 15 tarts.
Last week, I returned to my favourite bread book to get the recipe for raisin bread and learned a few lessons in the process.
Instructions in the recipe were to soak the raisins in Madeira wine overnight. Having no wine, and being in a hurry, I simmered raisins (and dried cranberries and chopped dried apricots, just because I had them) in a little apple juice to plump them before adding them to the bread dough.
That’s when the lesson kicked in. Adding the poached fruit, drained but still wet, made the surface of the dough slippery, and it was difficult to incorporate them evenly and make a smooth dough. Next time, I’ll blot the fruit dry (as the recipe instructs!) using clean kitchen towels or paper towels. The bread tasted great, but the top crust was lumpy and the interior streaky in places due to the wet fruit. I posted a picture of the imperfect loaves on facebook.com/IslandGusto.
Raisin Bread
Adapted from Gill, Janice Murray: Canadian Bread Book, McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, Toronto, 1980
- 15 mL (1 tbsp) dried yeast
- 5 mL (1 tsp) sugar
- 50 mL (3 tbsp) lukewarm water
- 500 mL (2 cups) scalded milk
- 15 mL (1 tbsp) salt
- 50 mL (3 tbsp) butter
- 5 mL (1 tsp) cinnamon
- 2 mL (½ tsp) ground mace
- 75 mL (⅓ cup) packed brown sugar
- 325 mL (1½ cups) seedless raisins
- sufficient Madeira wine to cover raisins
- 1.25-1.5 L (5-6 cups) flour
Warm the Madeira wine and pour over the raisins. Leave to plump overnight. Drain, reserving the liquid and pat raisins dry.
Proof yeast in lukewarm water with 5 mL (1 tsp) of sugar. Add the wine from the raisins, salt, brown sugar and butter to the scalded milk. Stir and leave to cool to lukewarm. Add proofed yeast.
Mix spices with 250 mL (1 cup) of the flour and stir into liquid. Stir in more flour, beating well until batter is too thick to stir and cleans the sides of the bowl. Turn out and knead, adding more flour to form a fairly firm dough. Knead until smooth, satiny and elastic. Place in greased bowl; cover and leave to rise till double.
Punch down and work in the raisins, taking care not squash them.
Shape into two loaves and place in well-greased loaf pans. Leave to rise until double, pick off any raisins which have come to the surface as they will burn.
Bake in 200 C (400 F) oven for 10 minutes, reduce heat to 180 C (350 F) and bake 25-30 minutes longer. Brush loaves with melted butter, remove and cool on racks. Place tea towel over loaves as they cool for a softer crust.
Margaret Prouse, a home economist, can be reached by email at [email protected].