The Fancy Trader Joe’s Dessert I’m Buying to Serve on Christmas

With a flaky pastry exterior, a gooey brown sugar or maple filling, and a fiercely debated center (Should there be raisins? Nuts? Or, for the avant-garde bakeries, a sprinkle of coconut flakes or chocolate chips?), butter tarts are one of those desserts Canadians proudly claim as our own.

They’re close cousins to an American Southern sugar or chess pie, but smaller, richer, and served in perfect, one-bite form. Around the holidays, bakeries across Canada start stocking them, and boxes disappear almost as quickly as they’re set out.

But as any baker familiar with butter tarts knows, the tiny desserts are deceptively time-consuming, between the flaky pastry, the glossy, candy-like filling, and finding a delicate balance between chewy and runny. So, unless you’ve got a grandma who’s been making them for decades, you’ll want to outsource the work.

My latest shortcut? The Teeny Tiny Maple Butter Tarts from Trader Joe’s. These little pastries nail the buttery crust and caramel filling without the fuss—and they look downright homemade on a dessert platter.

Why I Love Trader Joe’s Teeny Tiny Maple Butter Tarts

The hallmark of a great butter tart is that it should run just slightly when you bite into it. The center shouldn’t be fully set, but it shouldn’t collapse into a puddle either. Instead, you want that perfect middle ground: a glossy ribbon of caramel filling that stretches just a little, almost like a cheese pull, and these Trader Joe's butter tarts do just that.

Because they’re meant to be warmed from frozen, each one emerges from the oven (or air fryer) with that ideal level of gooeyness. The crust crisps up while the filling loosens into molten gold. It takes only a few minutes, but the difference between eating them at room temperature and biting into a warm one is nothing short of transformational; suddenly, they taste bakery-fresh.

What really sets these apart, though, is the maple syrup in the filling. Most traditional butter tart recipes rely on brown sugar, butter, and corn syrup to keep things sweet and sticky.

Trader Joe’s swap adds a subtle depth—caramel-smoky, slightly earthy—that makes each bite feel richer and more complex. It’s a small twist on a Canadian classic, but one that feels right at home on any holiday dessert tray.