Butter tart quest:
a Sweet excuse to take a day trip
Culinary tours are a popular way to spend a day, and there are areas where you can spend days road-tripping on a butter-tart tour, which we highly recommend. However, we think you will also enjoy this shorter ‘mini butter tart tour’ that you can easily do in one afternoon from the west end of Hamilton, Ontario, into the surrounding farming communities of Hamilton Wentworth county.
So, if you are looking for a fun (and sweet) way to spend the day, take the family on a day trip through Hamilton Wentworth County. In this short drive – about twenty minutes from end to end – you can check out some fantastic bakeries, serving up delicious baked goods made the old-fashioned way. Be sure to have a freezer bag or a cooler in your vehicle for all of the delicious items you pick up along the way for your own butter tart quest.
Fill your car with the aroma of delicious freshly-baked goodness from these four bakeries on a butter tart tour of Hamilton Wentworth:
Weil’s Bakery of Westdale
981 King Street West,
Hamilton, Ontario L8S 1K9
Stop # 1 in our Hamilton Wentworth (mini) butter tart tour is Weil’s Bakery a fixture in the Hamilton food scene. With phrases like artisanal, real food, and old-fashioned being trendy right now, this has been how Wiel’s Bakery has been since they were opened in 1903. For over a century, they have been providing the people of Hamilton Wentworth with quality baked goods made from scratch with only the finest ingredients.
If a loaf of fresh-baked bread is what you seek or a fancy cake for a special occasion, Weil’s Bakery in Westdale has you covered. They also have a fantastic selection of pies, cakes, squares, cookies, and pastries to satisfy even the most discerning sweet tooth. Their doughnuts are delicious little bites of heaven, and customers flock to Weil’s early to get them before they sell out. As the seasons change, so do the doughnut flavour options, which will keep you coming back time and time again.
The Butter Tarts:
And of course, there are the butter tarts. They offer various flavour options for their butter tarts, including plain, raisin, pecan, coconut, Skor, chocolate, and others.
These are small, cute little butter tart with a hand-made from-scratch appearance. The pastry is thin, light, flaky, and evenly baked. The crust’s flavour does not detract or overpower the overall character of the tart. The filling on this butter tart is a dark golden-brown caramel colour. It has the consistency, taste, and texture of caramel. If you want to satisfy your sweet tooth, and a butter tart is what you crave, this one delivers. It has a thick filling that is very sweet and sticky with a slight chewiness. The crust-to-filling ratio is on point; you get a bit of pastry and filling in every bite.
Overall, I found this butter tart to be tasty, although a little too sweet for me. I found it has more of a caramelized syrup flavour than butter tart flavour. It is still a delicious sweet treat.
Beyond the Butter Tart:
Their cinnamon buns and doughnuts are amazing. They are very popular items with the locals who have been visiting this bakery in the Westdale area of Hamilton for years. They sell out fast, so go early. Whether you are looking for sweets for a party, bread for dinner, or a mid-afternoon treat for yourself, Weil’s Bakery is the place to go.
The Village Bakery
104 King St. West
Dundas, Ontario L9H 0B4
The second stop on our Hamilton Wentworth area (mini) butter tart tour is the Village Bakery in Dundas. Just a few minutes drive from Weil’s Bakery is the village of Dundas, Ontario. This quaint little town is so picturesque that it is frequently used as the setting for many of those Hallmark Channel movies you love. You know you do.
In the heart of town is an old historic church, which has been converted into retail space for several businesses. Inside, you will find the Village Bakery. The first time we went looking for this bakery, we had difficulty because, at the address we had, all we saw was the church. There is very little signage to make it clear what is inside. Trust us; there is a bakery in there.
With a display case packed with so many gorgeous baked goods, it will be hard to choose what to take home. They have beautifully decorated cookies in a variety of images/shapes. There are so many varieties of delicious squares – including Nanaimo, peanut butter chocolate, and lemon squares (these were amazing). Regardless of what you might be craving for your sweet tooth – they will have something to satisfy – cinnamon buns, cupcakes, cookies, pies, and tarts. They also have fresh-baked bread, quiches, and other savoury menu items to enjoy in their cafe or to take home.
The Butter Tarts:
The butter tarts are why we sought out the Village Bakery in Dundas. When we arrived, they were low on inventory, but we could score some pecan butter tarts.
This is one beautiful butter tart. It is evenly baked with a light golden colour and has a pretty little scalloped edge and two pecan halves on top for a beautiful presentation. The pasty is thick, with very flaky layers, and has a lovely light texture with a buttery flavour. It is perfectly cooked without being dry, oily, crumbly, or damp.
The filling on this butter tart is very buttery and sweet. The consistency is a bit gelatinous due to the all-butter mixture. There is no ooze factor to the filling, so it will be easy to eat the butter tart as you walk through the village of Dundas without making a mess.
Beyond the Butter Tart:
If you know someone who could use a pick-me-up, why not do a random act of kindness and get them a box of sweets from the Village Bakery in Dundas, Ontario?
The Tiny Shop Bakery
969-1001 ON-5
Dundas, ON L9H 5E2
The third stop on our mini-butter tart tour through Hamilton Wentworth is the Tiny Shop Bakery in Dundas. The building is a tiny red cottage on Hwy 5. Located just 8 minutes away from the village of Dundas, it is very close to the Flamborough Downs Casino. The Tiny Bakeshop may be small in size. Still, what they lack in space, they make up for in the options and flavours of their baked goods. Every ounce of space is well-utilized to display its many varieties of pies, cookies, squares, condiments, cakes, and tarts. They always have a vast selection of cookies, squares, tarts, muffins, scones, and many flavours of amazing fruit pies. Here, you will find quality baked goods made the old-fashioned way. The Lemon Melt-away cookie is to die for.
The Butter Tarts:
The butter tarts are small and thin, with a very uniform appearance. The crust is flaky, but it lacks a lightness that I prefer in pastry, but it holds together very well. The filling is sweet, and the raisins are plump and juicy. However, the type they use has a mild flavour, and there are not many of them. So they do not dominate the taste of the butter tart. Because there is not much filling here, the filling stays inside the pie without oozing out. The flavour is tasty, with a buttery, creamy decadence. Overall, this is a pretty good little butter tart.
Beyond the Butter Tart:
When you visit The Tiny Shop bakery, I recommend bringing a freezer bag with you. Their frozen uncooked meat pies are probably the best-tasting meat pies I have ever had. You will want to stock up. We particularly love the turkey and chicken, but they also have beef, deluxe, and pork tourtiere. The flavour they pack into these meat pies is out of this world.
Be sure to visit in the fall for the Hanes Corn Maze and pumpkin patch for a fun autumn activity for the whole family.
Rockton Berry Farm
621 Old Hwy 8
Rockton, ON L0R 1X0
The fourth stop on our little mini butter tart tour in Hamilton Wentworth County is the Rockton Berry Farm. The town of Rockton’s claim to fame is it is the home of the annual Rockton’s World Fair, a large agricultural-based fair and festival held annually in October. Throughout the year, the Rockton fairgrounds also host many other events and festivals you may want to attend.
A mere 2 km away from the fairgrounds is Rockton’s Berry Farm. An eclectic little spot is a combination convenience store, post office, bakery, deli, and farm market. It is a satellite location for the LCBO and the Beer Store – a little bit of everything is here at the Rockton Berry Farm store. In the bakery, you will find various fresh-baked items such as cookies, cakes, buns, bread, tarts, and pies.
The Butter Tarts:
The butter tarts at Rockton Berry Farm come in plain, raisin, pecan, and chocolate. They are not a fancy or gourmet butter tarts, but a good basic butter tart that Canadians have come to know and love. The tarts have a light but thick and flaky crust that is perfectly baked. The filling is smooth and creamy, with a rich buttery taste and an ooz-iness that drips a little down your chin as you eat it. A sweet nugget of crystallized sugar on the bottom of the tart gives it that extra ‘oomph’ that we love.
They are a very decadent and sweet treat that we never pass up on when we are in the area of Rockton. They are a delightful, basic butter tart.
Beyond the Butter Tart:
The fruit pies at Rockton Berry Farm are not to be missed. The pies are delicious and come in a variety of amazing flavours. Even though The Rockton Berry Farm store is not too far for us to get to, at any given time throughout the year, we always have at least one Saskatoon Berry and Rhubarb Pie in our freezer because we love it so much. And you will, too.
If you know of a great bakery making what you think are Ontario’s Best butter tarts, we would love to hear from you. Let us know about them, so we can plan a future road trip to check them out, and include them in our #ButterTartQuest. Contact Roguetrippers with your suggestions.