Moose Jaw home to best butter tart

MOOSE JAW – Maple Leaf Bakery, a well-established bakery in Moose Jaw is getting some sweet recognition. Canadian Living Magazine has named their butter tart one of the best in the country.

“There’s something that’s special about it. I can’t really tell you what that is,” said customer Ron Anderson.

The butter tarts are the fourth best in Canada, according to the magazine and the best overall in Western Canada.  So what is so special about them?

“We’re a scratch bakery, so we do hands on hands, just like gramma would do in the kitchen,” explained co-owner and manager Marlaine Schweiger.

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“It more or less melts in your mouth,” she added.

The bakery also has a secret weapon. They still use an old brick oven dated 1928.

“It’s almost a century old and we’re still using it,” said Schweiger. “That might add to the flavour of the flaky pastry too. The bricks give it a really nice constant heat.”

And there’s one other key ingredient – history.

“My husband and I bought it from his parents 30 years ago, but I worked here before for his parents and they ran it for 48 years,” said Schweiger.

The tarts are always one of the bakery’s top sellers – they sell out of 10 dozen a day, 80 dozen during Christmas. This week especially, because of the publicity, they’re flying off the shelf, which is keeping the bakers even busier than usual.

“My day starts at about two in the morning,” said Joe Schweiger. Most of the time he doesn’t mind being busy and he’s touched his loyal clients voted for his nearly 80-year old recipe.

“(I feel) gratitude when people come in and they say, ‘this is awesome that it’s a family-run business,'” he said.

The owners said they’re treating the recognition as a challenge. The butter tarts will stay a best seller, but now they’re looking to make something different: the next big treat.