When it came time to plan my Thanksgiving dessert this year I knew exactly what I wanted, these pumpkin butter tarts! Butter tarts are a Canadian tart with a light and flaky pastry crust filled with a mixture of butter, sugar, and eggs that is baked until the filling is set and either semi solid or still a bit runny. Normally I make butter tarts for the Christmas holiday season but this year I thought that I would try making a fall seasonal variety and add pumpkin to the filling! Butter tarts can be made plain or you can add nuts like walnuts or pecans and/or raisins but for these pumpkin butter tarts I went with toasted pumpkin seeds, pepitas, and dried cranberries instead. These butter tarts start out with an all butter pie crust pastry and I went with a slightly different version of the filling substituting half of the brown sugar with maple syrup which is something that I like to do with my regular butter tarts, along with the addition of the pumpkin puree. These pumpkin butter tarts turned out even better than expected! They are quite simply divine! The pumpkin, pepita and cranberry flavours work so amazingly well with the butter tarts flavours and lets not forget those fantastically light and flaky pastry crusts!
The only problem is that I have already polished off two batches of them all by myself and I’m going to have to make a few more batches! No, wait, that’s not a problem at all! 🙂
Just look at that beautiful soft and gooey centre!
That light and flaky all butter pastry crust is so good!
Feel free to omit the pepitas and cranberries!
Instead of making them in muffin pans I like to make them in larger tart pans where there are perfectly sized for dessert for special dinners like Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner!
Feel free to omit the pepitas and cranberries!
So nice and light, flaky and good!
Pumpkin Butter Tarts with Pepitas and Cranberries
Absolutely divine fall themed butter tarts with pumpkin, toasted pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries!
ingredients
- 1 pie crust pastry
- 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
- 1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
- 1/2 cup maple syrup (or brown sugar)
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup pepitas (toasted pumpkin seeds)
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
directions
- Roll the pastry out to 1/8 inch thick, cut into 12 4-5 inch circles,
- Mix the pumpkin puree, brown sugar, maple syrup, butter, egg, vanilla extract, salt, pepitas and cranberries and divide the mixture between the tarts.
- Bake in a preheated 350F/180C oven until set, about 15-20 minutes.
Option: Use a large muffin pan for 6 larger tarts or small tart pans. Note the naking time will increase to about 20 minutes for the large muffin pans and about 25 minutes for the larger tart pans, just lightly shake the pans to make sure that the pilling is set to see if they are done!
Unknown says
November 26, 2015 at 12:54 amKevin – Is it possible to post portion sizes for your "Nutrition Facts" on each recipe? My boyfriend and I made Pumpkin Chorizo & Black Bean Soup tonight (which was terrific, btw!) but his "one serving" is a WHOLE lot different than mine. 🙂
Maria says
November 26, 2015 at 2:48 amBite sized beauties!
Lisa Curtis says
December 17, 2015 at 1:27 pmYummyyyy!!! Tried those tarts the other day and loved them quite a lot. Thanks for sharing this, Kev 🙂