Piping hot Egg tarts always feel so warm to the heart. But you really can’t get to eat it hot unless you make it yourself. The other day I was feeling nostalgic about having some good old egg tarts when I started looking for recipes again. One thing that I am quite clear off, making my own egg tarts, is not just the nice, smooth (and not so sweet) egg custard in the tart shell, but also a thinner tart shell (as opposed to thick tart shell), which makes it lesser guilt to eat.
Egg Tarts are borne from Hong Kong Dim Sum. There are 2 basic types of Hong Kong egg tarts, the rich, creamy buttery egg tarts vs the flaky puffy egg tarts. I adapted the recipe from WokOfLife that uses the rich, buttery egg tarts, that uses the rubbing-in method for the crust. To do the flaky, puffy shell, there are more steps to it, you need to do the water dough and oil dough (this you can check the recipes online).
The recipe below is very simple and easy to do. We use 75 grams of sugar, though we recommend 85 grams below as we have low sugar tolerance.
After the egg tarts are baked, when it was served hot from the oven, my family members love it, and starting gorging it …. it was not too sweet, you can feel the freshness or it was freshly made, hot from the oven. The taste is unforgettable and priceless….
Hope you can try it too!
Making of the egg tart shell.
This is the egg custard.
The egg tart shell then pour egg custard into the tart shells.
Hong Kong Egg Tarts
Preparation Time: 45 mins, prepare 15 egg tarts
Recipe adapted from WokOfLife
Ingredients:
Crust
200 grams plain flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp sugar
200 grams unsalted butter
2 tbsp cold water
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
Egg Custard
1 cup hot water
4 1/3 small eggs (room temperature)
1/2 cup evaporated milk
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
85 grams castor sugar (original sugar 115 grams)
Method
- Prepare the egg tarts crust. Sift the plain flour twice, add in sugar, salt and cinnamon powder. Take out the cold butter, cut into smaller pieces, use the fingers to rub the butter with the flour till tiny chunks of butter is still visible. Add in cold water to the mixture and use hand to bring to a dough. Cover the dough and put inside the fridge (lower compartment) to keep it cold for at least 20 minutes.
- Pre-heat the oven to 200 oC.
- Next, prepare the egg custard. First dissolve sugar in the hot water. Let it cool down.
- Separately, whisk eggs with evaporated milk together. Then add in the sugar water and vanilla extract. Mix well. Strain the liquid using a fine strainer to remove the egg bubbles. This step is very important to get a smooth egg custard.
- Take out the dough, use a roller to roll and flatten the dough, cut out the dough and put inside the egg tart shell. Use your fingers to press and line the dough firmly against the tart shell.
- Pour the egg custard into the egg tart shells until almost full.
- Immediately put the egg tarts into the hot oven. Bake at 200 oC for 15 mins. Then (without opening the oven door), reduce the temperature to 180 oC and continue to bake for another 12 mins.
- The egg tarts are done once you put in a toothpick in the middle of the egg tart, and the toothpick stands and not fall over.
- Enjoy the tarts when it is hot. It tastes the best now!