A few weeks ago my Mom saved me a section of the National Post, because it was all about rhubarb. Turns out, this was actually part of a new feature in the paper called Gastropost!It works like so: each week a new food-related mission is posted, you can complete the mission, and then post about it on the Gastropost blog.

I just missed the cut-off for the Team Strawberry vs. Team Cherry face-off last week (I’d be Team Strawberry, no doubt), so this week was my first official submission. This week’s mission: What does Canadian food mean to you? Here’s what I had to say:

A poll of my friends and family on Canada Day revealed a few different votes for the quintessential Canadian food – poutine, tourtiere, stew, biscuits – none of which I really felt like making or eating during the humidity of July. But butter tarts are welcome any time of the year! These are one of my all-time favourite treats, and for this batch I used pure maple syrup in the filling. Super sweet, super Canadian!

You can check out my completed mission here and a pdf of the paper here!

Here’s the recipe I used:

Maple Syrup Tarts

Source: Babble

Yield: 7 butter tarts

Ingredients

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp butter, melted

pinch salt

+ frozen tart shells or your fave recipe for a single pie crust

Directions

  1. Whisk together maple syrup, brown sugar, egg, butter and salt. Pour into the tart shells. (If you made your own dough, roll it out to 1/4″ thick, cut into 4″ circles – I used the lid from a tupperware container – and place it into muffin tins).
  2. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes until golden. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes, then remove to cool on a wire rack.