Butter Tarts — The Sweet That Holds a Christmas Morning Together

Christmas Eve. Pozole at the Maryvale house — the tradition that predates my memory, the tradition that Elena learned from her mother who learned it from hers, the pot of hominy and pork and chiles that has been simmering on Christmas Eve in the Rivera family since before the border was a line anyone cared about. Elena made the pozole. I assisted. Sofia shredded the cabbage and sliced the radishes and arranged the garnishes with the precision of a surgical team. Diego sat at the kitchen table and ate tortilla chips and asked every four minutes when the pozole would be ready and was told every four minutes that pozole takes time and that patience is a virtue, neither of which deterred him from asking again in four minutes.

Roberto sat at the Maryvale kitchen table and supervised, which means he sat and watched and occasionally said things like "more oregano" and "that pork needs another twenty minutes" and "the hominy looks good," which is Roberto's version of active participation. He looked tired this Christmas Eve — the new medication has side effects that he minimizes and Elena reports: fatigue, nausea in the mornings, a general slowing that is partly medication and partly sixty-five and partly the relentless arithmetic of a body that has been fighting sugar for five years.

Christmas morning: Jessica's cinnamon rolls, shipped from Diane in Duluth, baked by Jessica at 6 AM while the kids slept. The smell woke them — cinnamon and sugar and butter and the Minnesota Christmas morning that Jessica carried from Duluth to Phoenix and which has become as much a Rivera tradition as the pozole. Diego opened his presents with the fury of a boy who has been waiting since the Christmas concert to rip paper. The dinosaur encyclopedia: received with reverence. The cooking class with Daddy: received with a scream of joy. The puppy: not under the tree. Diego looked at us. "No puppy?" I looked at Jessica. Jessica looked at me. "We're still discussing," I said. Diego said, "Please discuss faster." He is six and he already understands that negotiations require urgency.

Sofia opened her gifts with deliberation — each package inspected, the paper removed carefully (she saves the paper, because Sofia saves everything that has organizational potential). The cleats: perfect. The cookbook: exactly the edition she specified. The food magazine subscription: she read the first issue at the breakfast table while eating a cinnamon roll and did not speak for thirty minutes, which is the highest form of Sofia contentment.

At Elena's that afternoon, I gave Roberto his Christmas gift: an apron embroidered with RIVERA'S — COUNTER MANAGER. Because that is his title. That is his role. The man who stands at the counter on opening day and greets every person who walks through the door and tells them with his presence that this restaurant was built by a family that has been standing at fires together since 1982. Roberto put on the apron. Elena took a photograph. The apron fit perfectly. The title fit better.

We didn’t make butter tarts this Christmas — Jessica shipped the cinnamon rolls, and the cinnamon rolls were perfect, and some traditions you do not tamper with. But standing in Elena’s kitchen on Christmas Eve watching Roberto supervise the pozole from his chair, and watching Sofia arrange radishes like a surgeon, I kept thinking about the other kind of thing you bake when you want a house to feel like home: small, sweet, golden things that come out of the oven still warm and fill a room the way a good family fills one. Butter tarts are that thing for me — the thing I’ll make on the Christmas mornings that aren’t cinnamon roll mornings, the thing I’ll put on the counter at Rivera’s someday when Roberto’s standing there in his apron and someone walks in off the street and needs to understand immediately that this place is warm.

Butter Tarts

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 22 minutes | Total Time: 42 minutes | Servings: 12 tarts

Ingredients

• 1 package (14.1 oz) refrigerated pie crusts, or homemade pastry for a double-crust pie
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup (or light corn syrup)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup raisins or coarsely chopped pecans (optional)
• All-purpose flour, for dusting

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin.
2. Cut the pastry shells. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pie crust to about 1/8-inch thickness. Using a 4-inch round cutter (or the rim of a wide glass), cut 12 circles. Press each circle gently into a muffin cup, easing the dough up the sides to form a small shell. Refrigerate the tin while you make the filling.
3. Make the filling. In a medium bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, melted butter, beaten eggs, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and salt until smooth and combined. Do not overmix.
4. Fill the shells. If using raisins or pecans, scatter a small amount into the bottom of each chilled pastry shell. Spoon the filling into each shell, filling to about 3/4 full — the filling will puff as it bakes.
5. Bake. Bake for 20–22 minutes, until the filling is set and the tops are golden and just slightly domed. The centers should have a very slight wobble when you pull them from the oven — they will firm up as they cool.
6. Cool before removing. Let the tarts cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Run a thin knife around the edge of each tart and lift them out carefully onto a wire rack. Cool at least 15 minutes before serving — the filling is extremely hot straight from the oven.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 285 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 15g | Carbs: 36g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 155mg