Butter tarts: a Barrie cookbook and the filling inside

A butter tart can look like a simple proposition: pastry around a sweet filling. But the name alone does not tell you whether dried fruit is inside, or which sugars the baker has used. A small Ontario cookbook offers a useful way into that variety — provided we do not mistake a printed record for a certificate of invention.

Start with a hospital cookbook, not an origin legend

Simcoe County Archives traces the earliest-known published butter-tart recipe to the cookbook produced by the Women’s Auxiliary of Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie in 1900. The book was a fundraiser: its contributors wanted to help pay for comforts for hospital patients, and its recipes were selected for ordinary household cooks.

On page 88, in the pies section, the entry was called “Filling for Tarts.” According to the archives, it occupied just two lines. Its contributor appeared as Mrs. Malcolm MacLeod; the archives’ research identifies her as Mary Ethel (Cowie) MacLeod.

That is a documented contribution to a particular cookbook. It is not proof that MacLeod invented the butter tart, nor that nobody had baked something similar before 1900. Keeping that distinction makes the story more interesting: the surviving record comes from community fundraising and everyday cooking, rather than a formal launch of a national dish.

The old filling included currants

The Simcoe County Museum’s recipe card, titled Butter Tarts – Barrie, 1900, lists sugar, butter, eggs and currants for the filling. Its plain crust uses flour, baking powder, salt, lard and ice-cold water.

Those currants are worth noticing. A historical recipe is not necessarily the plain version a modern shopper might imagine from the words “butter tart.” Nor does this particular filling require maple syrup simply because the pastry is associated with Canada.

There is another important distinction between the sources. The archives explains that the original short entry assumed knowledge of pastry-making, oven heat and baking time. The museum’s card supplies a fuller working method, including a temperature and timing. Read the card as the museum’s practical presentation of the recipe, not as evidence that all those instructions appeared in the original two lines.

A modern recipe takes another route

For a contemporary example, Dairy Farmers of Canada publishes a Basic Butter Tart Recipe using brown sugar, brown corn syrup, butter and eggs, with vanilla, salt and a little cream. It uses ready-made tart shells and does not list currants.

The point is not to crown either version as the correct one. These two published recipes show why a familiar name can cover different ingredient choices. They also show why it is unwise to assume a tart contains maple syrup, dried fruit or a particular pastry fat without checking.

Three useful questions at the bakery

If you are choosing a butter tart, ask what is in the filling, what the pastry is made with, and how firmly the centre is set. Those are questions about the actual product in front of you, not a ranking of bakers or an imagined tasting review.

If you want to bake from the historical source, follow the museum’s complete card rather than reconstructing a method from a list of ingredients. If you prefer the contemporary version, follow that recipe as a whole: its quantities and instructions differ.

The reward of looking back to Barrie is not a rule that every tart must copy the past. It is a clearer way to read the present — and a reminder that a hospital fundraiser can leave a lasting mark on a country’s food story.

Sources checked on 11 October 2026. The archives’ historical article was originally posted on 19 January 2018; publication dates are not stated on the museum recipe card or the contemporary recipe page. This is a source-based food-history guide, not a report of a bakery visit.