Tammy's Recipes

Individual-serving tarts with a flaky cream cheese crust, filled with a chewy sweet mixture of nuts and coconut or raisins

Dough Ingredients:

8 ounces cream cheese
1 cup (2 sticks) butter (cold)
2 cups flour

Filling Ingredients:

2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter
2 cups chopped nuts, raisins, or shredded coconut

1. Place dough ingredients in a medium mixing bowl and mix. Since butter is cold, cut in until crumbly and continue mixing until mixture forms a dough, using hands if necessary.

2. Portion dough into 24 small balls. Lightly grease muffin tins and place one ball of dough in each cup. Press dough up onto cup sides, making a little "bowl" or "cup" shape.

3. Put all filling ingredients into a separate bowl and mix until well-blended. Spoon filling evenly into the individual cups. Top with additional nuts, raisins, or coconut if desired.

4. Bake tins at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes, until filling is slightly solidified (it will set a little more once out of the oven, but should still be slightly liquid once done).

This recipe was submitted to TammysRecipes.com by Jessica L.

She writes, "This is a recipe cultivated from my french-canadian grandmother's recipe box. Butter tarts are an incredibly sweet and decadent dessert. It is almost like a pecan pie, but I find it to be a little smoother.

"The dough is incredibly simple, but is tender, flaky, and has a delicious flavour thanks to the cream cheese.  These rarely last more than 3 days in my house, and everyone asks for the recipe!  It is definitely my favourite dessert.

"For an extra-special treat, you can pop the butter tart in the microwave for a few seconds and top with a scoop of ice cream ... YUM!"

These butter tarts are so delicious! The crust is flaky and has a subtle cream cheese flavor. For the filling, I used pecans and shredded coconut. It tasted wonderful! Almost like little mini pecan pies! I am sure I would like almonds in this, as well. Another idea I want to try sometime is adding cinnamon and raisins instead of the nuts and coconut.

This recipe was easy to make (easier than I expected!) and produced beautiful, delicious tarts. They're very sweet, but if you love pecan pie, you'll love these tarts!

My rating: 10/10