2nd Annual Stittsville Butter Tart Festival sells out fast

(The winners of the second annual Stittsville Butter Tart Festival celebrate with the judges on September 9, along with Mandy Faulkner and Dan Viens, owners of Stittsville Market at the Barn, who are behind the inspiration of bringing a butter tart festival to Stittsville. Photos: Stittsville Central)

Mandy Faulkner and Dan Viens of Stittsville Market at the Barn had another roaring success of an event with the 2^nd Annual Butter Tart Festival on Saturday, September 9^th. Just like the festival’s inaugural year, the butter tarts sold out quickly – even with about four times as many tarts as last year from twice as many bakers, they were all gone within only a couple of hours.

Mandy was happy to note that “even though we sold out early, people still stuck around.” While many of the thirteen vendors selling butter tarts – over twice as many as last year’s six – sold out of the festival’s main attraction quickly, they were able to take orders and hand out business cards or sell other baked goods on offer. In addition to the vendors selling butter tarts were stands selling homemade crafts such as knitting, beading, and woodwork, as well as hot sauces, crystals, and more. Overall, twenty-three vendors and sponsors saw lots of visitors stopping by to admire their work and purchase goods.

Like last year, festivalgoers voted for their favourite butter tarts with People’s Choice tickets. Through the sale of extra People’s Choice voting tickets, Stittsville Market at the Barn was able to donate $443.25 to the Ottawa Valley Wild Bird Care Centre.

In addition to the People’s Choice, a panel of six judges taste-tested multiple butter tarts to choose the Best Unique/Signature Butter Tart and the Best Traditional Butter Tart. This year’s judges included Councillor Glen Gower, Chef Reggie Olson of Scratch Box Gastro Truck, Chelsea Giffen of the Stittsville Village Association, and three community members who were selected from many “applicants” eager to take on the delicious job. Councillor Gower was pleased to sample the “works of ‘tart’,” he jokes. Having judged the Best Unique/Signature Butter Tart, he applauded the bakers for their creativity, saying, “I never would have thought you could do so much with a butter tart.” A fellow judge of the unique butter tarts, Reggie agreed, “there were lots of varieties I never would have thought of.” The judges were happy to have gotten the opportunity to sample various butter tarts. “They went quickly. We were lucky to get a taste,” says Councillor Gower.

After tallying the People’s Choice and the judges’ scores, Mandy announced the winners of the 2^nd Annual Stittsville Butter Tart Festival. For the second year in a row, the People’s Choice butter tart went to Tom of Atomic Tom’s (tent #3). The Best Unique/Signature Butter Tart was awarded to Starr of Sugar Tarts Bakery (tent #1) for their maple bacon butter tart. Finally, the Best Traditional Butter Tart was awarded to Margaret and her team at Loughlin’s Country Store (tent #4).

Mandy and Dan were pleased to have another successful Butter Tart Festival. Dan states, “it was an overwhelming success. You always hope for the best but worry about things like weather and attendance. Then everything goes well until you have to tell people we sold out of butter tarts. It’s unfortunate, but we’d rather the bakers not have to take anything home after their days of hard work baking and preparing. The bakers probably brought four or five times the butter tarts as last year’s.” Overall, Mandy estimates that about 7,000 butter tarts were sold at the festival this year.

In addition to this year’s winners, the following bakers shared their butter tarts:

• Alex’s Baked Creations
• Modern General Food Group
• Burbidge Apiaries
• Keepin It Vegan Bakery
• Kings Creek Garlic Farm Thank you for supporting local
• Memaws Cakes
• Practically Perfect Bakery
• Sunnyset Farms
• The Comfort Cafe
• The Piggy Market

Orange T-shirts were also being sold by the Indigenous Law Student Governance’s Annual National Truth and Reconciliation/Orange with fundraiser proceeds going towards the Indian Residential School Survivors Society.

As with every community event hosted by Stittsville Market at the Barn, there are behind-the-scenes sponsors who are always willing to show their support. This year Mandy and Dan had the following community supporters with some returning for a second year:

• Capital Crystals Metaphysical Boutique
• Jessica Higgs Real Estate
• Kodiak Snow Removal
• FitPix
• Holmespun Ice Cream
• Maverick’s Donuts, Stittsville
• Jo-Jo’s Pizzeria
• Chatch & Bo