My first attempt at Egg Tarts

Dear son loves egg tarts. I guess most kids and even many adults like the egg tart, for the crispy crust with silky smooth sweet egg custard, quite a matchmade in heaven. Personally I prefer the Hong Kong Dim Sum type with flaky crust (using oil dough and water dough), rather than the simpler version made using sweet shortcrust pastry.

So far I have hesitated to attempt the egg tart as I know the difficulties in handling such dough in our humid climate. Attended a hands-on class on flaky egg tart at Creative Culinare before and I was totally hopeless in rolling, beating and folding the dough, resulting in really ugly looking egg tarts that were very hard. Therefore, I have not attempted this before at home.

But recently, I came across two recipes using shortcrust pastry method from Precious Moments and Kokken69 and rekindled my interest in making the tarts. The recipes look quite easy to manage with basic ingredients that I already have in my pantry.

Decided to try the recipe from Precious Moments first.

Well, preparing the dough and egg custard was pretty straightforward. And I was happily thinking to myself that I could do this every other day! But the tough part came with cutting the dough into round shape and then moulding the dough into the tart mould. I had already chill the dough sufficiently in the fridge but the dough turned soft very quickly making it very pliable; couldn't even lift up the dough after cutting them using the cutter. I had to stick the dough into the fridge every now and then. Many of my tarts turned out with uneven edges.

Then, I also realised that the surface of the egg custard turned brown rather quickly. I had to remove the tarts from the oven short of the required baking time. Probably my oven was too hot. Anyway, the tarts turned out not too bad, the crust was quite crispy and custard soft (but not silky smooth enough) and sweet. I thought it was a little too sweet even though I had already reduced the amount of sugar, could do with even lesser next time then.

Dear son didn't take well to it though, he ate only half and rejected the rest. Hmmm... wonder what's wrong with the tart or is he too jaded already? Anyway, will attempt the recipe from Kokken69 next to compare the difference.

Egg Tarts(Recipe from Precious Moments. I halved the recipe and yielded 12 egg tarts)

For the crust:

• 95g unsalted butter, softened
• 113g plain flour
• 38g custard powder
• 30g icing sugar (original recipe uses caster sugar)
• 1/2 egg (about 27g), beaten

Method:

1. Crumb the butter with the plain flour, custard powder and icing sugar together into fine crumbs.
2. Add in the beaten egg and form a dough.
3. Rest dough in fridge for 10 mins or more till the dough is slightly harder (easy to handle) but not too hard (dough will break easily).
4. Using a plastic sheet, roll the dough thinly and using a cookie cutter, cut into disc and place into tart mould.
5. Using a fork, prick some holes into the dough. Set aside.

For filling:

• 100g boiling water
• 50g caster sugar (original recipe uses 75g)
• 2 and 1/2 eggs (about 80g), beaten
• 125g fresh milk

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 200C for 15mins
2. Dissolve sugar in boiling water, let cool, add egg and fresh milk. Do not beat, just stir and mix.
3. Strain the mixture and pour into the tart mould.
4. Bake at 180C for 25mins or until cooked.