“We don’t have to bow to Big Raisin”: This Toronto bakery took the top prize at Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival

It’s that time of year again when the days get longer, the drinks get slushier and the province’s confection enthusiasts flock to Midland to sample the very best in baked goods. The eleventh annual Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival featured gooey goodness from more than 200 vendors, but only one tart could reign supreme—and this year, top honours went to the Pie Commission. In the past, the Etobicoke bakery has mostly been known for its savoury meat pies, but that has changed since the big win last weekend. “We’re selling hundreds of tarts a day,” says co-owner Patrick Blessing, who is committed to maintaining quality (butter inflation be damned).

The Pie Commission has been around for more than a decade, but this was your first year at the festival. How come? Well, we’ve only done butter tarts since 2019. When we opened in 2013, we just did savoury pies: classic pot pies, steak and kidney bean, butter chicken. But I guess, because of our name, people kept coming in and asking for apple pie, so we decided we would do that. And then, about five years ago, the same thing happened with butter tarts, where our customers kept asking, so we decided to go ahead and make them. We’re lucky to have an extremely talented pastry chef, Michael Smith, who trained at the Cordon Bleu school in Ottawa. He created our classic butter tart in 2019, and that’s more or less the same recipe that won the competition. I always thought it was very good, but I’m not really a butter tart aficionado, so what do I know? And then a friend of mine, who does consider himself to be an aficionado, was in the shop earlier this year. He said our tart was amazing and that we should consider entering the festival. I was like, “What festival?"

Only Ontario’s annual butter tart smackdown extraordinaire! Right, exactly. I had no idea it was such a big thing: 60,000 people and a lot of feelings about butter tarts. We entered our original tart in the traditional category and our caramel apple in the wild-style category. It was a lot of work prepping 3,000 tarts, but I thought it would be a fun experience and a way to connect with new customers. I had no idea we stood a chance of winning.

When did that change? Before the awards ceremony, I started to notice that we were getting repeat customers: people who tried our tarts and then came back a while later. I thought that was a bit weird, because most people who attend this event want to try as many options as possible. So I asked why they were coming back, and they said it was because our tarts were that good. That’s when I started to wonder if we might have a shot.

I stayed back to man the booth while Michael and our head of marketing, Allison, went to the awards. We still had a few hundred tarts left to sell. Everything was pretty quiet because people were all over at the stage, and then suddenly we had a lineup and everyone was sweaty because they had run all the way to our booth. Then someone asked me, “Do you know you won?" I’m still in shock.

Any idea what gave you an edge? I think it’s the quality of our pastry: we use real butter, which is more expensive than lard or shortening, but I think it’s worth it. Everything is handmade, and then chef Michael has his secrets around preparation and technique and temperature, which I’m not going to share. Of course, the filling is also a huge part of it: not too sweet, not too sticky. But I really do think our pastry is the secret.

So the secret ingredient to your butter tarts is…butter? Simple, but not so simple. After we won, one of the judges turned to Michael and said, in a very serious voice, “You have created the perfect butter tart.” We’re really proud that we won in the traditional category, plus we took home the overall prize for best in show, which could also have gone to one of the more unusual versions in the wild category.

Meaning you managed to win without any stunt ingredients or showy flourishes? Right. I think it speaks to chef Michael’s talent that he can make something so familiar stand out in the way that he did.

And is that with or without raisins? I know this can get controversial. Oh, definitely. People would come up to our booth, no pleasantries, no hellos, just, “Do you have raisins?” And we’d say, “No, sorry, we don’t,” and they would storm off. I don’t think I realized quite how seriously people take this.

So, just to be clear, you are not a raisins guy? Well, actually, both chef Michael and I do like raisins, just not in butter tarts. That’s why we don’t have them. I guess that’s the advantage of running your own business. We don’t have to bow to Big Raisin.

You were the new kids on the block this year. Did you feel welcome or was there a competitive vibe between vendors? Honestly, it was so busy. I thought I would have time to kind of walk around and check out the festival, meet people from the other bakeries, but we were so slammed from the very beginning, and that was nothing compared to the lineups at some of the previous winners’ booths.

Last year’s winners are also from Toronto, despite butter tarts often being considered a small-town delight. What’s nice about the competition is that it’s a blind taste test, so the judgment is based strictly on the tarts, but I know what you mean. I’m the same way. If I go to a country bakery in rural Ontario, l’m probably going to buy a butter tart. There’s just an association and a history. Trying to run a business in Toronto makes it hard to compete, just in terms of the cost of operating. I can understand how you might not have the resources to spend so much time on any one specialty or to do everything from scratch considering the cost of ingredients these days.

You’re talking about butter tart inflation? I’m talking about butter! The cost has gone up 50 per cent since 2020, so that has had a huge impact on everything we do. It’s not easy, so we are happy to ride this little wave of success.

Is it safe to assume that your butter tart business is booming? Definitely. At our shop, we usually sell about 20 butter tarts per day, and now it’s more like 400. You can identify the people who are coming in for them—they have a look in their eye.

They’re chasing that sugar high. Yeah, maybe. And then our regular customers are like, What is going on here?

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.