Egg Tarts

As if school from 8-3 isn't enough, I've got an extension class for maths every wednesday that goes on until 5. I consider myself lucky because I have a friend who also has a morning class on wednesdays and even today who has tutoring after the extension maths class... she's crazy like that, can you imagine 12 hours of just school-ish environment gah, it's awful. Thankfully, to make things more bearable, my classmates often bring along various cakes/cupcakes/cookies to lift everyone's moods in the otherwise demanding and tiring afternoon class. It's really quite sad though to think that I've only got 3 more of these kind of classes, as much as I hate staying back doing maths, we get the funniest moments from stories our teacher tells us.

So anyway, I don't think I've made anything myself before for my lovely maths class so I thought it's about time I should, plus the same crazy friend I mentioned above has been nagging me non-stop about making egg tarts, so I thought why not? Kill two birds with one stone, make her happy and with a bonus of making the whole class happy. Who wouldn't like egg tarts, right? Well to my horror, my teacher has never heard of egg tarts and kept insisting that the world only revolved around custard tarts, I felt slightly sorry she's lived without knowing them!

These egg tarts were all in all very easy to make, the dough was very easy to work with, in total, it took my 2 hours BUT that was only because I had to divide them into 3 batches because my oven has random hot spots which leads to over browning or even burning various cookies/muffins etc in the past when I used more than one tray. So if you don't have such dodgy oven, I'm sure it will take you much less time. What I loved about the recipe was that there was no need to rest the dough or refrigerate it before baking and the custard was just plain easy to make too which means, less wait for the finished product. 

I'm sure not alot of you would own 15 mini tart pans, so it's fine to just use disposable foil liners. However the downside to using these is that I don't know about yours but my liners are quite shallow thus making the custard to crust ratio very unsatisfying: there was definitely a lack of custard! My mum liked it that way because she loves the crust but it's not the same for me because I love a good thick layer of jiggly pudding like custard! Nevertheless, it was a very easy-to-follow, pretty foolproof recipe actually which yields lovely egg tarts. I was really glad it turned out well, because my mum already warned me it was difficult as she had many experiences when her custard would inflate too much and collapse upon taking them out of the oven- turns out that the opening the oven door during the last cooking period is crucial so don't forget that! Make sure to eat them straight after baking when the crusts are still crisp and custard is warm. They can be refrigerated but I much prefer the warm kind! Enjoy!

Cantonese Egg Tarts 

Recipe adapted from Christine's Recipes

Makes about 14-16 egg tarts (3-InchTart Tin or about 20 if using disposable foil tart liners)

For the Crust:

125g butter

55g icing sugar

1 egg, whisked

a dash vanilla extract

225g plain flour

pinch of salt

1. Place butter at room temperature until softened. Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer over medium speed until the mixture is smooth, fluffy and light in color.

2. Add in whisked egg, half at a time, beat over low speed. (at this point, the mixture turned very lumpy and I thought I did something wrong but it turned out fine so don't worry!) Add vanilla extract, mix well.

3. Sift in flour in two batches, add the pinch of salt, scraping down the sides of the bowl between additions with a spatula, and make sure all ingredients combine well. Knead into dough. 

4. Roll out the dough to a 1/2 cm thickness. Cut dough with a cookie cutter that is just a bit smaller than your tart tin in size. Line dough in the middle of tart tins, one by one. Lightly press the dough with your thumbs, starting from the bottom then up to the sides. While pressing the dough, turn the tart tin clockwise/anti-clockwise in order to make an even tart shell. Trim away any excess dough.

5. Preheat oven to 200C. Make egg custard.

6. Position rack in lower third of oven. Bake custard filled tarts for 10 to 15 minutes until the edges are lightly brown.

7. Lower the heat to 180C. Keep an eye on them. Once you see the custard being puffed up a bit, pull the oven door open about 2 to 3 inches. Bake for another 10 to 15 minutes until the custard is cooked through. Just insert a toothpick into the custard. If it stands on its own, and crust is slightly browned, it’s done.

For the Egg Custard:

3 eggs

110g caster sugar (you can reduce a little if you don't like it too sweet)

225g hot water

85g evaporated milk (low fat is fine)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Add sugar into hot water, mix until completely dissolved.

2. Whisk egg with evaporated milk. Pour in sugar water. Mix well.

3. Sift egg mixture to get rid of any foam into a tea pot. Carefully pour egg mixture into each tart shell.