Buttertarts N' More [Mimi's Cake Tour X Butter Tart Tour]

Bakery: Buttertarts N' More 
Address: 1037 Little Britain Rd, Little Britain ON 
Website: n/a
Style: Canadian
Price: $$ 

A little recap: So, some absolute genius at Kawarthas/Northumberland Tourism created the Butter Tart Tour: a "tour" (rather, several smaller tours) of 40+ local bakeries, cafes, markets, and other businesses making and baking their own butter tarts. Participating locations are spread out all over the county, from farms, to small towns, to Peterborough  itself, and are marked with a Butter Tart Tour logo (left) in their window and, surprisingly, no butter tart is alike. On the most recent "tour", I tried five bakeries in five towns and butter tarts (with some extras along the way) were purchased for the big challenge: five butter tarts, all at once.

Third place: Buttertarts N' More -- where butter tarts are so quintessential they become one word. :P This was a very hotly contested third place, as two of three participants in the butter tart challenge (i.e. everyone except myself) found this one a tad disappointing and gave it fourth. Yes, I admit it was a little disappointing to find that the runny butter tart had well, run away. All into the paper bag. :/ A box would have probably been better, since it came out of that paper bag almost entirely drained of its filling. Thus, it appeared like it would turn out to be a dry, dull butter tart. I'm not sure if their shells were of bronze-medal calibre, probably not, but that filling -- or what little was left of it -- was... heavenly. This was the first time I'd tried a runny butter tart and I am loving the idea. I'm just a little disappointed that it was pretty much empty by the time it was brought home.... at least it gives new meaning to runny. :P

Also up for trying were these unique Chelsea buns. Maybe you've seen them before: plain buns resembling cinnamon buns just with raisins instead of the cinnamon and usually coated with glaze and some icing. Take that image and leave it at the door upon entering Buttertarts n' More. This was like a classic English fruitcake exploded on top of a cinnamon bun. Just look at these beauties! It's hard to even see the buns underneath (which made photographing them extremely difficult) all those nuts and candied fruit and sugar mass. One sampler took one bite and said they were so sweet they were gross. The rest of us agreed: these were extremely sweet. Actually, upon taking them out of the box, I found them sitting in a veritable pool of sugar and it wasn't the most appetizing of sights. I find Chelsea buns usually boring and bland, but these were definitely worth trying and are -- and probably will remain -- the best Chelsea buns I've seen.

Butter tart verdict: Pretty good shell, nothing too notable, with a rich, amazing filling. A "runny" hit. ;)

Rating: ***