Just how delicious is a homemade butter tart? Roughly 20,000 people were in Midland on Saturday to find out.
In just three years, Ontario Best Butter Tart Festival has grown from selling 12,000 little treats, to more than 80,000 butter tarts in the one day festival.
"I saw the depth of feeling that our cottagers and tourists had for this particular pastry. I realized that nobody has middling feelings about butter tarts, people have strong opinions about butter tarts," says organizer Barbara Rowlandson.
The Midland event has become the largest butter tart festival in Canada. A fan favourite was the Queen's Tarts from Sault Ste. Marie. They sold all 168 dozen of their tarts in the first few hours.
"We saw the long line and we just jumped in, it was worth it, we got two dozen,” says Midland resident Naomi Ryczko. “It's amazing, the pastry's perfect."
But like every festival, there is an official panel of judges to pick a winner including CTV Barrie's Tony Grace. The judges are tasked with tasting 120 entries.
"We've seen smores, we've seen lots with coconut, the fruity ones are always good, we've seen the caramel maple bacon, we've seen pork," says Simcoe North MP Bruce Stanton.
