Butter tarts bought at supermarkets are fine for those with a sweet tooth, but The Queen’s Tarts - located at 472 Queen St. E. - has special, locally-made, uniquely-flavoured gourmet butter tarts for Saultites and tourists to savour.
The business is owned and operated by the Sault’s Aaron Craig and Tammy Paterson.
“The pastry in our tarts is key. Everything is handmade. I make and roll the pastry by hand. Nothing's machine-made. Everything's made from scratch,” Paterson told SooToday.
“Our tarts aren't overly sweet. They're not sickly sweet. We go for flavour over sweet,” Craig said.
When it comes to flavour, The Queen’s Tarts certainly doesn’t have a shortage of flavoured butter tarts to choose from.
“We have 30 flavours out for sale every day. We make over 80 varieties in total but we switch them around seasonally,” Craig said.
Butter tarts for sale during a recent SooToday visit to The Queen’s Tarts had flavours such as mint cookies and cream, Nanaimo, salty Canadian, chocolate chip banana bread, chocolate cream egg, cookies and cream cinnamon toast and chocolate raspberry merlot.
And that’s just a partial list.
“Our most recent flavour is tiramisu. Tammy has the talent. I just think of an idea, a flavour, then she does it, it tastes awesome and we sell it,” Craig said.
The shop’s classic plain butter tarts are by far the couple’s best-seller, Craig said, but he noted that salted caramel-flavoured butter tarts are the favourite among the fancier varieties.
Customers can purchase a box of tarts for takeaway or can enjoy a single tart with a cup of coffee in a cozy cafe setting at the Queen Street business.
Customers can also enjoy a bowl of soup and a sandwich or quiche in The Queen’s Tarts dine-in space.
Craig and Paterson opened The Queen’s Tarts at its current downtown location in June 2019.
Prior to setting up shop on Queen Street, the two ran the business out of the former Mill Market beginning in 2015.
The couple have sold their tarts at Ontario's Best Butter Tart Festival - held every June in Midland, Ont. - since 2015.
“It's the biggest festival of its kind in Ontario and that's when we realized there's a living to be made in butter tarts. They had about 40,000 people there last year. It’s a one-day festival and we went through 500 dozen tarts there. It's unreal,” Craig said.
The couple also sells their wares at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair held every November in Toronto.
Craig and Paterson have also earned words of praise from The Food Network.
“When Tammy first opened up the booth at Mill Market we thought it was a nice hobby to have but here we are 10 years later. This is what we do for a living now,” Craig said.
Craig and Paterson said the ingredients for their tarts are Canadian and locally sourced.
“This is something I've always enjoyed. It's fun to come up with different flavours and it's fun to see people's reactions to what I make. I enjoy doing it and it's nice to be in business for ourselves,” Paterson said.
It may seem surprising to Canadians but many tourists don’t know what a butter tart is.
Craig and Paterson enjoy introducing people to the Canadian treat.
“We have lots of tourists who come through and have never seen a butter tart. They'll come in, they'll have that first bite and they have that look of ‘oh, this is so good.’ I really enjoy that," Craig said.
"I also like the other small things, like pouring a latte and drawing a heart on top and getting a big smile from a customer. It takes me a second to do it but I enjoy it,” he added.
More information on The Queen’s Tarts can be found on the bakery’s website and through social media.
