Trina Berlo photo: Marilyn Steed (top, from left), Lynn Bell, Gayle Millsap and Gail Martens can’t stop rolling after two days of making butter tarts to be sold at Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival in Midland June 13.
The Creemore Legion Ladies Auxiliary and the St. John’s United Church choir “Holy Rollers” teamed up to make more than 200 dozen butter tarts for last weekend’s Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival in Midland.
About 25 volunteers spent all day June 11 and 12 baking up a storm. They were broken out into stations; mixing, rolling, cutting, panning, filling, baking, packing and washing.
Proceeds from the sale of the tarts will go toward church and Legion community initiatives.
The effort was organized by Jim Henderson. Last year, the church made 100 dozen butter tarts using a recipe from Mother Parker’s, a Henderson family restaurant that used to be in Stayner.
A partnership seemed prudent to add manpower and in order to make use of the spacious kitchen facilities at the Legion.
One hundred dozen didn’t last long. They sold out in one hour and 15 minutes.
So, Henderson recruited helpers from the Legion, thinking they could double the yield. They went to this year’s event with 200 dozen tarts loaded into vans in the wee hours Saturday before being trucked to Midland.
Henderson said it was a great day but not all the tarts sold because there was more product on the street than last year, during the inaugural event, when 50,000 tarts were sold. This year, organizers were promising more than 70,000.
The Legion-St. John’s team came home with several dozen tarts, which will be for sale at Creemore’s Canada Day celebrations.
With the Henderson family having donated the ingredients, about $1,800 will be raised to split between the two organizations once they are all sold.