Newmarket is home to some of the best butter tarts in Ontario, an accolade reaffirmed by The Maid's Cottage's double victory at last weekend's festival in Midland.
The shop on Main Street entered the competition held June 11 and 12 and came home with first-place ribbons in both the traditional style for its pecan butter tart and the wild style for its unique raspberry white chocolate cheesecake butter tart.
“I give the credit to the bakers because they’re the ones that invented it. They kind of take some time and they just start making all different concoctions of things,” said Pam Lewis of the wild style tart.
She owns the store with her sister, Debbie Hill. They have been in business for 24 years now and butter tarts are the signature item they serve.
The original recipe is from their great-grandmother and the pair and their team of bakers have since made a variety of different flavours.
“Honestly, we don’t have enough space in our display case to carry everything. It overflows,” Lewis said.
Hill said customers are overwhelmed when they come in and learn how many choices there really are.
“They are quite surprised how many different flavours we have but they like that, they really like that," she said.
The raspberry white chocolate cheesecake butter tart is an example of their unique offerings and was created specifically for the festival. The process involved sampling a lot of different tarts and experimenting with the baking team to see what worked best.
"Some of them don’t turn out the way we think they will,” Lewis said. “It’s interesting to see what they come up with.”
There is a team of about 15 people who work at the family-run business.
“We’re all family. Some of the ladies have been here for years and years and we run it like a family and we’re close,” Lewis said.
Morale is generally very high in the kitchen, Hill said, but this week the bakers have been "over the moon," which bodes well for the customers as the baking is impacted by their mood, she said.
“It makes a difference. You don’t think it does but energy when you’re baking, if you’re mad or frustrated or stressed, out it comes through the baking,” she said.
The Maid's Cottage first entered the festival in Midland in 2016 and went on to win ribbons that year and in 2017. However, due to COVID-19, it hasn't participated in a festival since 2019.
This win was "a rainbow after the storm," Lewis said. During the pandemic The Maid's Cottage had to pivot and opted to close its indoor dining room for good, instead focusing on takeout and wholesale.
Hill agreed that the win is very exciting “especially after the last two years and with everything that’s been going on. I know some people were anxious to get back into some normalcy and it was very exciting.”
While this isn't the team's first win, she said it is good to be recognized in the wider community.
"It is an honour, it really is. We feel very proud and we work really, really hard and the girls work hard. We have a lot of fun but we really are proud with how far we’ve come with everything," she said.
