Chinese Egg tarts

 

 These were my favourite tarts as a child, my parents use to buy chinese buns and egg tarts from the chinese bakeries when we visit China town. Usually the egg tarts gets eaten first and we leave the chinese buns for breakfast the next day.

 

I now make these at home for my children and they are really delicious.

I use a short crust pastry as it's a lot easier than the traditional puff pastry.

 

The pastry melts in the mouth and the eggy custard is perfectly set.

 

 So here is the recipe for you to make fresh egg tarts at home.

This recipe makes 15 egg tarts using medium tart cases, the custard is just enough for this size.

 

Ingredients:

 

Egg custard

90g sugar

225g water

3 eggs

1 yolk

85g evaporated milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

 

Prepare the sugar in boiling water to dissolve, set aside to cool.

(You can move on to making your pastry while it is cooling down)

Once the sugar water have completely cooled down, add in the eggs and yolk, evaporated milk and vanilla extract.

Whisk gently to combine, pass through a sieve and discard the egg whites that cannot pass through.

Your custard is ready to use.

 

 

Pastry for the tarts:

 

125g cold butter, diced

1 egg white (use the one you had from the custard)

30g icing sugar

200 plain flour

!/2 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

 



 

Rub the butter, flour, icing sugar and salt together until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.

Add the egg white and vanilla extract into the pastry to form a dough.

Place into a zip lock bag and flatten into a disc shape to chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

 



 

 Preheat the oven at 200c.

 



Once pastry dough is firm, roll out onto a worktop dust with flour, roll to 1/2cm thick and then cut out with a round pastry cutter.

Mould the pastry into the tart cases.

Press firmly down and pinch the rim with the thumb and index finger to get smooth sides.

 

 

Once all the tart cases are all prepared, poke tiny holes gently with a fork inside the base of the tarts.

Fill with custard to the top and bake for 10-15 minutes at 200c then once the tart crust looks brown and crispy, turn down the heat to 180c and bake for 5-10 minutes.

 

Every oven works differently so when you are making this the first time, watch it carefully and don't over bake it.

 

What to look out for, the custard may wobble slightly in the middle but it is not watery, then bake for 1-2 minutes and take out.  Some of my tarts were bake unevenly due to my oven, so I took out the ones that was cooked and baked a further 5 minutes for the rest that needs a little longer.

 

These tarts will come off easily from the tart tins even when hot. There's no need to grease them first.

 

Enjoy your egg tarts!