I grew up eating egg tarts. Not the Portuguese or Macau egg tarts – those only became popular when I was an adult. The kind that kids loved then in the 80s and before were the soft sweet crusted Hong Kong style egg tarts that are always sold in our local bakeries.
Recently because of the lockdowns everywhere, my friends who are also all over the world now have been baking this piece of nostalgia. And even though I can easily get my egg tarts here, I decided to make my own and boy was I glad I tried making my own! Nothing beats freshly baked egg tarts straight out of the oven.
There are many recipes out there on the Internet. But this one that I eventually decided to follow is simple. The only downside to this is that it is a tad too sweet but luckily for me I didn’t allow the sugar to melt completely into the water so the sweetness was just right. What I liked about this recipe is that the dough is really flaky and buttery.
I made the entire dough using a mixer. The recipe was extremely easy to follow. I must say, I really like the sweet dough and would make it again for different kinds of dessert tarts next time. After making this dough, I wrapped it in cling film and rested it in the fridge for 20 minutes. And while it was resting, I made the filling. The important step in making the custard filling is to make sure you run it through the sieve first so that it’ll be silky. When the dough is chilled, take it out and divide into portions. I have 20 of these aluminium tart casings so I divided into 20 small balls. Fill each casing with the dough. They don’t need to be baked before the filling. After this step then carefully pour the egg filling into the dough casings. Before going into the oven.And it is here at this stage that I would like to share that while the tarts were baking, I saw them balloon up and panicked. However, this apparently is meant to happen. I over-baked the tarts and that’s why the custard looked all wrinkly. So what you should do is after you notice the time of the tarts turning brown and cooked, switch off the oven BUT let it sit in the oven for another 10 minutes. While my tarts were indeed slightly overbaked, they still tasted good and were not dry at all. It affected only the look of the tarts. See? Still soft and crumbly. They were good! The egg tarts were devoured quickly, with only a pathetic two pieces left for Grandma the next day. 😁
Loves eating...too much.
Pottering about in my kitchen is a joy.
Loves culture and different cuisines; loves buying food books and trying them out.
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The Occasional Cook 