Summer’s Taste Sensation: Deep-fried Butter Tarts

John Curran | Aug 19, 2020

There’s a taste sensation sweeping across much of Eastern Ontario and it’s a new twist on an old favourite from the kitchen and crew at Mrs. Garrett’s Bake Shop.

Like savouring a summer carnival in your mouth, this in-demand delicacy starts with one of the shop’s famous butter tarts. It’s then coated it their signature batter and deep-fried until gooey and golden brown.

“With a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it sends it right over the top,” said Dawn Lake, the owner/operator of Mrs. Garrett’s Bake Shop, north of Inverary. “We started making them at the beginning of the summer, but for some reason they’ve really been taking off just in the last little while.”

Lake, who bought the shop from her mother Joyce Garrett in June of 2018, said they have been posting and promoting their deep-fried butter tarts online and the response has been tremendous.

“The last post we did had 40,000 views,” she said. “The feedback has really been great so far.”

Demand has been so brisk that her skilled team of confection specialists had to churn out 100 dozen of the sweet treats on Friday and by the end of the day there was, but a solitary tart left on the shelf.

“We’ll do another 100 dozen today (Saturday) for big orders we’ve got between now and Monday,” she said. The idea came to them after her son-in-law Chris came across something similar on the menu of a national restaurant chain and relayed a photo to the team at the shop. “I thought, I’m in the butter tart business, I can do that and make it even better.”

She must have been right because the phone has been ringing off the hook.

“Monday someone is coming from Orleans to pick up an order and we’ve had calls from as far away as Brockville and Ottawa,” said Chris. “We even had one woman from Toronto get in touch with us through a relative of hers with a cottage in the area.”

Online, the kudos have been flowing faster than the sugary sweet filling inside each freshly fried tart.

“I just had one of these and it was incredible!” wrote Victoria Gilholm.

Lisa Langlois was a little more succinct, “So good!”

Katie Sonnenburg could scarcely form a sentence after seeing the tarts on facebook, “Oh. My. God.”

“Maybe its a good thing that I don't drive,” joked Tracy King, “because this could really be dangerous.”

Plenty of people were driving to the shop yesterday from when it opened at 8 a.m. through to closing in the late afternoon.

“As soon as they were coming out of the deep fryer, people were snatching them up,” added Lake.

It’s very much a family affair around Lake’s bakery. In addition to mother Joyce and son-in-law Chris, her team of eight includes sons Ryan and Dillon, aunt Fay, cousin Yvonne and one unrelated employee, Michelle.

“She’s done such a great job with the shop, I am so proud of her,” said former owner Joyce of her daughter’s efforts. “Like with these deep-fried butter tarts, she’s so good at coming up with creative new ideas.”

While the new items are generating most of the attention these days, Joyce added she still prefers the classics.

“Standard butter tarts and strawberry rhubarb pie are still my all-time favourites,” she concluded with a smile and a slight lick of her lips.