By Rose Simpson
Tom Burnett has lots and lots of groupies. He’s like a rock star whose fans are willing to wait for hours for a chance to savour just a flake of his success. A discerning bunch, they come for the sugar and stay for the pastry. People travel for miles around to meet him.
After five consecutive years as the People’s Choice winner at the Stittsville Butter Tart Festival,
there is no question Tom is the King of Butter Tarts.
He wasn’t always the baker-in-chief. Tom spent most of his career as a leader in Canada’s nuclear medicine and isotope industry, serving as vice president and general manager of BWXT ITG Canada, Inc. and president of medical isotopes at Nordion. He only discovered the art and science of baking after his retirement in 2021. That’s when he was looking for something to do at his cottage in Westmeath.
“I didn’t do much baking or cooking,” he explains. “I wanted to get more proficient and learn to bake something that I could take to people’s homes. I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll start with butter tarts.’”
His early attempts ended in disaster, with pastry so hard it could break a window. Always ready for a challenge, Tom persevered using his formal training, researching ingredients and making batch after batch. He even conducted focus groups with friends and family. It took him a few months to get the right fillings concocted with maple syrup, raisins and pecans. It took another year to bring perfection to the pastry, which is made with butter instead of lard.
And then he found the sweet spot, rolling the dough thinner and thinner until he could almost see sunlight through the sheets of pastry.
“I just kept hearing from people that they didn’t like thick crust,” he says. “They didn’t like it that they had to get through the crust to get to the filling. That’s what made my tarts unique, having a thin crust that is all butter, very flavorful with a filling that is not sickly sweet. It’s not too sweet that you can’t have two.”
Then came serendipity. Tom’s path collided with Stittsville’s plan to host a butter tart festival in 2022. The first year, Tom sold about 200 butter tarts and won his first People’s Choice trophy. This year, he sold 3,000 butter tarts at the festival. Most of his other clients come from Instagram or word of mouth.
The popularity of Tom’s butter tarts has meant that he’s had to scale up with a certified kitchen, a major requirement for chefs entering public competitions. Tom bakes at his cottage a few days a week, producing about 160 butter tarts per session, then freezes them in anticipation of any onslaught of major orders.
Customers can order plain, raisin or pecan butter tarts. They come in clamshells of six for $18. Plain butter tarts lead the way in popularity, followed by pecan and raisin.
“Raisins can be very polarizing,” he says. “I don’t know why. But, personally, I like them all.”
Tom believes that butter tarts are having a resurgence, thanks to a renewed pride in all things Canadian.
“I can’t think of a more Canadian dessert,” he says. “Butter tarts have such a strong identity. It’s distinctly ours and uniquely Canadian. It’s almost nostalgic; it’s comfort food.
“I can’t think of any other dessert that has so many groupies: People who love discovering new butter tarts and travelling to try them or going to festivals or having competitions. It’s a whole new world I discovered that I didn’t know existed. I just wanted to bake a dessert and I discovered there’s a whole butter tart society. It’s incredible.”
While Tom is considering some sort of expansion, he has no plans to go nuclear with his butter tart business.
“I’m not in this to make a lot of money,” he says. “It’s about making something myself that’s mine from scratch.”
What he loves most about his business is meeting customers at his booth or when he’s delivering orders.
“It’s always exciting,” he laughs. “People are always in a good mood. When you’re buying butter tarts, you’re never upset. I catch people when they’re just about to have the best part of their day. They’re going to have a butter tart.”
Atomic Tom’s Thin Crust Butter Tarts are available by contacting Tom at Atomictom70@gmail.com or 705-872-7261. You can also follow him on Instagram @atomictomsbuttertarts
