Maple Whisky Butter Tarts with a Gluten-Free Crust

For the pie crust:
Put the flour in the bowl of a food processor with a blade attachment. Add the other dry ingredients (sugar through salt) and pulse the machine a few times to mix them together. Add the cubed butter and lard and pulse the machine until the fat is the size of small peas mixed with the flour.

Mix the water, vinegar and egg together in a small bowl and pour it into the flour mixture in the food processor. Pulse the machine until the dough starts to come together into a ball.

Turn the loose ball of dough onto a floured board. Gently knead it so that it comes together in a ball. Divide the ball in two and flatten each half into a disc. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge for at least a half an hour.

Place a large piece of wax paper on a large board and dust it well with flour. Place one disc of dough on the piece of floured wax paper and dust the top of the dough with flour. Place another large piece of wax paper on top of the dough and roll it out with a rolling pin. Frequently lift the piece of wax paper off and dust with flour again. Lift the bottom piece of wax paper up on one side and gently reveal the underside of the dough and dust it with flour. Do the same on the other side. Put the piece of wax paper back on top and continue to roll the dough until it is 3mm thick.

Use a 2 1/2″ biscuit cutter (or whichever size will give you pastry discs that will go all the way up the sides of the tart or muffin tin you are using) to cut out circles and press the circles into the wells in a non-stick mini-muffin tin (recipe makes roughly 36 tarts). When the tart pans are filled with the dough circles, put them in the fridge while you prepare the filling.

For the tart filling:
Preheat oven to 400 F.

In a small bowl mix the whisky with the raisins and let it sit.

Melt the butter with the brown sugar in a small saucepan over low heat. Mostly dissolve the brown sugar in the butter. Remove from the heat and let it cool.

Stir in the maple syrup, vanilla and beaten egg. Then fold in the whisky and raisins mixture.

If making mini-tarts, then fill each one with a scant tablespoon. Fill approximately ⅔ full. Bake at 400 F for 11-12 minutes, or until the filling is bubbly. Remove from oven.

Let the tarts cool 5 minutes in the pan and then carefully remove them from the pan and continue to cool them on a rack. You will get approximately 36 mini-tarts.

Notes:
1. If you prefer less raisins it will give you more gooey tarts. You will get fewer tarts this way but you could double the filling recipe with a small amount of raisins.
2. You could grease the muffin tin if you like but it isn’t necessary if you use a non-stick pan. There is enough butter and lard in the pastry that they will release. If the filling boils over you may lose a few tarts but greasing the pan wouldn’t help that anyway.