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TART TRADITION

Gloria Dei Church fundraiser dates back many years

Jodi Summit
Posted 11/24/15

PIKE TWP- The basement at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church was buzzing with busy workers at their stations last week. Everyone knew what they needed to do.

“I’ve been doing this for 26 years,” …

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TART TRADITION

Gloria Dei Church fundraiser dates back many years

Posted

PIKE TWP- The basement at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church was buzzing with busy workers at their stations last week. Everyone knew what they needed to do.

“I’ve been doing this for 26 years,” said Delores Clark, chairman of the Gloria Dei Women’s group that sponsors this annual fundraiser. But no one in the room could exactly remember when the holiday tart tradition had started. Others were sure the tradition stretched back at least 35 years.

Evelyn Esala, of Embarrass, said the first few years of tart-making featured a hand-made puff pastry, where thin layers of butter were rolled into the dough.

“It was very time consuming,” she said. “They also used to make the prune filling by hand.”

Everyone there had holiday memories that featured the delicate pastries.

“They were a Christmas treat,” said Clark. “My mother made them but the recipe came from my aunt Signe Norha.” Clark said Norha would always tuck some away in the freezer for when Clark visited after Christmas, because she knew how fond she was of them. While her family always made prune tarts, Clark said nowadays she is quite fond of the apricot.

Evelyn Esala was joined by her granddaughter, Becky Lindquist of Prior Lake. Lindquist is set to be married on Nov. 28, but was taking a few days off from her wedding preparations to help out at Gloria Dei. Evelyn said she had already made tarts for her granddaughter’s wedding reception.

This year the crew was using new tart-cutters, with beautiful wooden handles, hand-made by Timothy Herring.

“The ladies never could figure out how my mother was able to make all her tarts the same size,” said Tim’s mother Annette. “Everyone else cut them freehand.” Annette’s father had made a tart-cutter for his wife, Lina Hujanen, ensuring perfectly-sized pastries.

That tart-cutter eventually went to her older sister, Elaine, but Annette’s husband Paul had handcrafted one of her own. After Annette’s mother died, her sister gave her their mother’s cutter, and her’s was handed down to her daughter Barb. Annette is making sure the next generation is educated on the ins-and-outs of baking tarts. Her grandchildren get to help at tart-baking time at home.

Corrine Jordan is in charge of mixing all the dough, with help from Pam Rasmusson. This year she was also helped out by Austin Alexander, a sixth-grader who had taken two days off school in Farmington, Minn., to come visit his grandmother Susan Harper and great-grandmother Barb Thiede, who were tart-making regulars. Austin’s younger brother, first-grader Ty, was helping his grandmother cut tart shapes from the rolled dough, and also was in charge of placing labels (for the flavor of filling) on each finished package of tarts, which were being carefully packed by the couple of male helpers at the church that day. The young tart-makers’ mother said the boys would be writing a paper on their experience to help make up for missing the days at school.

Corrine learned the ins and outs of tart dough from the late Rachel Avikainen, who led the tart-making extravaganza for many years.

“We used to mix it by hand,” she said.

Jordan has modernized the process a little, using a KitchenAid mixer to prepare each batch of the dough, and pre-measuring the dry ingredients and placing them in a plastic bag before tart-making day. She said she keeps on making dough from early in the morning until later in the afternoon. When the rest of the crew starts to slow down, she knows it’s time to stop mixing for the day. While the last batches of tarts go into the oven around 4 or 5 p.m., it’s another two hours before they are baked, cooled, and packaged.

At the end of the three-day baking marathon, the group will have baked and packaged as many as 700 dozen tarts, sold for $6 per dozen. They will have gone through 250 pounds of flour and 124 pounds of butter. They estimated it takes about 1,000 volunteer hours, and the crew of 15-20 can make 200-250 dozen tarts each day.

The logistics are amazing. Making the tarts is one thing, but then getting them packed up for delivery and making sure everyone gets the variety they ordered is also a huge job.

The tart sale is a fundraiser, with the money raised going to donations for missions and local charities like the food shelf, as well as some projects at the church. The group does a pasty fundraiser in the spring.

The bad news is that this year’s tarts are already spoken for. To get information on placing a tart order for next year, call the church at 218-741-1977.

You can also try making a batch of tarts at home. The recipe, they noted, isn’t a secret and is generously shared with readers of the Timberjay.

Gloria Dei’s Finnish Tart Recipe

By the Gloria Dei Women

5 cups flour

½ cup sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

pinch of salt

1 lb. butter, softened

1 c. half and half

1 egg

Measure dry ingredients. Cut butter into the flour mixture and mix well. Stir eggs with half-and-half and pour into dough mixture. Knead until soft and dough forms a ball. If the dough feels sticky, add a little more flour.

Roll out dough and cut tarts using a tart cutter. Place tarts on an ungreased cookie sheet (line with parchment paper if desired). Fill with traditional prune, apricot, blueberry, or raspberry filling. Fold corners into center (every other one) to make the pinwheel shape. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Cool on baking sheet. If you do not have a tart cutter, you can cut the dough into squares, and then make the slits from each corner halfway to center by hand.

Handmade tart cutters can be purchased from Tim Herring, call 218-780-7730.