A delicious whisky laced, dried fruit and nut filled flan. It’s kind of like the best possible buttertart-fruitcake you can imagine. Yum!
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- Make the pastry
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- Press into a pie plate
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- Scottish Tart filling ingredients
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- The finished tart!
This was the second sweet we served at our Robert Burns Dinner.
Scottish Tart
A traditional tart with dried cranberries, currants and nuts in a delectably sweet filling. A little goes a long way!
Ingredients
Scale
For the pastry crust (9″)
- 190 g (6 2/3 oz or 1 1/3 c) all-purpose flour
- 63 g (2 1/4 oz or 5 tbsp) sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 140 g (5 oz or 10 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
- 1 medium egg, beaten
For the filling
- 200g (7 oz) soft dark brown sugar
- 200g (7 oz) butter
- 40 g (2 tbsp) golden syrup
- 4 medium eggs, beaten
- the grated zest of 1 lemon
- 150 g (5.3 oz) currants
- 75g (2.65 oz) dried cranberries
- 75g (2.65 oz) almonds, sliced or chopped
- 75g (2.65 oz) pistachio nuts, chopped
- 75g (2.65 oz) walnuts, chopped
- 100 ml (1/3 c) Scotch whisky
- whipping cream to serve
Instructions
Make the pastry crust
- Place an oven rack in the lowest position. Pre-heat the oven to 350ºF or 325ºF Convection.
- Whisk the flour, sugar, and salt together in a medium-sized bowl. Add the melted butter and stir with a wooden spoon until dough forms (about 15 seconds). Using your hands, press two-thirds of the dough into the bottom of a 9-inch tart pan (1.5 – 2 inches deep)* with a removable bottom. Press the remaining dough into the fluted sides of the pan. Press and smooth the dough with your hands to an even thickness.
- Place the pan on a wire rack set in a rimmed baking sheet and bake on the lowest oven rack, until the crust is light golden brown and firm to the touch (20-25 minutes), rotating the pan halfway through baking. Remove the pan from the oven and brush the inside of the pastry with the beaten egg, return to the oven for five minutes until brown. Set aside until ready to fill.
Make the filling
- Reduce the oven temperature to 300ºF or 275ºF Convection.
- Melt the sugar, butter and syrup in a saucepan. Remove from the heat and whisk in the eggs. Add the lemon zest, fruits, nuts and whisky. Mix together and scoop into the pastry shell. (Warning – the tart pan will be filled to the brim; don’t be alarmed. It doesn’t bubble over, but subsides to a firm mass as the alcohol evaporates while baking. Just carry it carefully over to the oven and slide it in).
- Bake for 20-30 minutes or until firm.
- Serve warm or cold, with whipped cream as a garnish.
Notes
* If your 9” tart pan is shallower, you can use a bigger pan (11” would work), increase the pastry and make some tarts, or reduce the amount of the filling, accordingly.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 10
I’m sharing this post with Between Naps on the Porch.
Loved your entire post of Robert Burns dinner! The soup tureens & tableware are perfect! I want to make the Scottish Tart. What is “golden syrup?” Would pure maple syrup do or is it more like clear corn syrup? Thanks for your clarification!
Hi Kay,
Sorry – I should have clarified earlier. It’s a British staple, but not much found in North America, I don’t think. Here’s is a link to it on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Tate-Lyles-Golden-Syrup-454g/dp/B0001590BY
I see they also sell it at World Market. Lyle’s Golden Syrup – we used to love it on oatmeal in the morning as kids (or if we could sneak a spoonful out of the tin when no one was looking).
It’s closer to a corn syrup than maple syrup, so if you wanted to substitute corn syrup I think it would be just fine. It’s a small quantity in the tart, and the whisky plus dried fruit have soooo much flavour.
Enjoy the tart! And thanks for stopping by. 🙂
I made this recipe for a Burns Supper and it was a hit. However the proportion of ingredients for the filling (even after reducing a number of them by eye) was enough to fill two prebaked crusts.
The solution is to either make two crusts or lay out the dry ingredients to visually determine whether they will all fit into the 1-inch void left in the crust, complete w eggs and butter. I reckon that if you end up with 1.5 C nuts and dried fruits then 3 eggs might do. Thanks for this recipe—we will be making it again!
★★★
Hi Barry,
I think the tart tin I used was deeper than average – 1.5 to 2”. The filling went right up to the very top of the tart tin. I placed it on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any overflow (there wasn’t any; it seemed to bubble without expanding much), and I had to be very careful when sliding it into the oven.
Glad it worked out for you and sorry if you had to scramble to fit it in.
Note – I’ve amended the recipe to indicate the depth of the tart tin.
Very interesting. Do you know if this recipe was used before the 20th century. I ask because it seems very similar to recipes for a Canadian staple – Butter Tarts – except Butter Tarts typically only have raisins/currants and/or walnuts/pecans. The origins of Butter Tarts has long been debated – a lot of people seem to think it’s the Quebec Tarte Au Sucre (Sugar Tart) but the Scottish heritage is also strong in Canada. A traditional Canadian Butter Tart recipe has vinegar (keeps the filling from boiling over and also apparently keeps the sugar from crystallizing) but Tarte Au Sucre doesn’t. So I wonder if whisky in this recipe served the same purpose. LOL…maybe I’ll try whisky in my Butter Tarts instead of vinegar…tasty.
Hi June,
I believe the recipe is quite old – 16th or 17th century. And interesting that you should ask about it relative to butter tarts! I’m Canadian, so I have a good notion of what you have in mind. Scottish tart is more fruit-dense than a butter tart. It’s almost halfway between a butter tart and a fruitcake. It’s not runny (even though the filling is liquidy going in). And the whisky does make it delicious.
Thanks for asking,
Helen