Butterscotch Tart Old School Recipe

This super easy recipe for Butterscotch Tart will transport you straight back to the 80s. This is my old dinner lady's very own retro recipe! The shortcrust pastry shell is filled to the brim with a deep caramel flavoured butterscotch - an authentic blast from the past.

You know I have a lot of love for Old School Puddings. In fact, some of my most highly requested recipes like School Cake and Cornflake Tart have led to you asking when there will be a recipe for Butterscotch Tart...and here it is!

As you might already know from all my other nostalgic recipes, I'm still in touch with my childhood friend, Sally, whose mum was our dinner lady back in 1986!

I'm the proud owner of a photocopied version of a school dinner recipe book that is now 34 years old. The dessert recipes are absolute gold and really take me back to my childhood.

And who wouldn't want to relive those carefree days? There's something so homely and comforting about being reminded of all the yummy puddings we used to have at school. Making them is a brilliant way of showing our kids what it was like "in our day".

So, Butterscotch Tart should be fairly well known if you had school dinners in the 60s, 70s or 80s. It has a shortcrust pastry base that is filled with butterscotch sauce and left to set.

You might have had it served with custard or perhaps mock cream. Sometimes people describe Butterscotch Tart as Gypsy Tart but they're actually quite different.

A butterscotch Tart has the consistency of a smooth-set caramel filling whereas Gypsy Tart is much lighter and more mousse-like.

What does butterscotch taste like?

Due to the brown sugar content, Butterscotch tastes a bit like caramel, but the flavour is deeper, warmer, and slightly stickier.

Butterscotch essense

This recipe does not include butterscotch essence because I personally don't feel it needs any extra butterscotch flavouring. They would definitely not have added butterscotch essence in the old school days!

This is supposed to be an affordable pud and adding the cost of a bottle of butterscotch essence that you might only use once doesn't feel right to me.

By all means, if you have any butterscotch essence in the back of your kitchen cupboard then add a teaspoon but I don't think you need it!

Homemade shortcrust pastry versus shop bought

As there are very good ready-made shortcrust pastry cases available to buy you can totally cheat this dessert! However, if you'd like to make your own shortcrust pastry as I did for my easy Lemon Tart, the recipe is below.

Shortcrust pastry ingredients

• 200g plain flour
• 100g cold butter, diced
• 2 tbsp cold water

How to make shortcrust pastry

1. Put the flour into a mixing bowl and add the diced butter. Rub the butter and flour together with your fingertips until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
2. Gradually add the cold water, mixing it in with a butter knife. Use your hands to lightly knead the dough then turn it out onto a floured surface.
3. Roll out the dough until it's slightly larger than your tin then using the rolling pin transfer it into the tin. Press into the edges of the tin leaving a slight overlap to account for any shrinkage in the pastry. Put the tin into the fridge and chill the pastry for 1 hour.
4. Once chilled, add a circle of baking paper on top of the pastry and fill it with baking beans or uncooked rice.
5. Bake at 200ºC for 20 minutes. When the pastry has baked you can trim any excess from the edges and proceed to make the Butterscotch filling (see the recipe card at the bottom of the page).

I hope you love making and eating this Butterscotch Tart as much as I did. It's such an old favourite of mine and I'm delighted to share the classic old school recipe with you!

Let me know in the comments which pudding you'd like to see next :)

More Old School Puddings you'll love

• Chocolate Concrete
• Jam and Coconut Sponge
• Manchester Tart
• Apple Crumble
• Pineapple Upside Down Cake
• Victoria Sponge
• Tottenham Cake
• Mars Bar Slice