Egg Tarts

I’ve always had a fear of pie crusts and “cutting the butter into the flour”. I don’t own a food processor, and I don’t have a pastry cutter. The times when I tried to “rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips” failed rather miserably, when all I did was to melt the butter between my fingers and get a whole lot of flour stuck up my nails. I never really got “crumbs that look like coarse sand with bits that are the size of peas”. Nuh uh.

When Boyfriend wanted to make egg tarts, I vehemently refused to, insisting that tart crusts are just plain difficult to get right. Boyfriend went ahead with his egg tart project on his own though, that brave guy (I’m so proud of him), and it actually turned out rather alright, save for a few changes he might make in the future.

The second time round, I joined him in egg tart making. We adapted a simple recipe for Hong Kong Style Egg Tarts from Allrecipes (I love this site), and made some changes to it. It wasn’t all that difficult afterall! And I finally conquered my fear of tarts and pie crusts. Thank you Boyfriend!

Egg Tarts
adapted from Allrecipes

Makes 10 Egg Tarts

Ingedients (Crust):
1/3 cup icing sugar
1 cup plain flour, plus more for dusting and rolling
1/3 cup (75g) cold butter, cut into 1″ cubes
1 tbsp of egg, beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Ingredients (Egg Custard):
3 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
3 eggs + leftover egg from crust, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup canned evaporated milk

1. Mix icing sugar and flour in a medium bowl. Toss cubes of cold butter in to coat. Using 2 forks, cut the butter into the flour/sugar until coarse crumbs form. The mixture should look like damp sand. You can also use a pastry cutter or a food processor. Add the vanilla extract and egg, and mix until mixture forms a dough. The dough should be able to roll into a ball and not stick onto the bowl. If mixture is too wet, keep adding flour a little at a time until all the dough is in a soft ball. If it’s too dry, add a bit of egg to moisten it.

2. Once all the dough is formed into a big, soft ball (it should not stick to your hands), flour your hands and pinch off about 1 1/2″ balls. Flatten each ball and press it into individual foil tart molds. Make sure the dough reaches the edge of the foil moulds, and make the edges a little thicker than the rest of the tart. The dough should be thin; just thick enough to not break and have holes in it. The dough should be able to fill 10 moulds. Set aside.

3. Preheat oven to 180C. The egg tarts will go into the middle rack later on.

4. In a small saucepan, boil the sugar and water until all the sugar is dissolved. Leave to cool to room temperature.

5. While sugar syrup is cooling, strain the beaten eggs through a sieve. Use a fork or spoon to help push the eggs through the sieve. Discard the remaining jelly like residue. Add in the vanilla extract to the strained eggs.

6. Whisk in the egg mixture into the cooled sugar syrup. Add the evaporated milk and whisk to mix well. Strain the entire mixture through a sieve again to make sure there’s no remaining residue in the custard.

7. Divide the custard among the 10 tart moulds. Each one should be able to hold a scant 1/4 cup of custard. Fill them almost to the top. We used a standard muffin tin to hold the moulds. You can also just place them on a baking sheet.

8. Bake in preheated oven for 17-22 mins. Tarts should be golden brown at the edges, and the custard should be totally set when you jiggle the pan. Remove to room temperature to cool. Store at room temperature. Chilling it makes the custard harden!

As you can see, I didn’t really manage to fill all of them them to the top, but the eggs we used were pretty small. The sugar content in both the tart and the filling can be adjusted to your liking. These are not too sweet. Boyfriend’s mum doesn’t like sweet things, but she said that these were good.

I brought half of them home for my younger brother, who loves egg tarts. He said that these were good as well! I’m so proud of Boyfriend and myself!! A little success goes a long way and works as an excellent encouragement for us. Hehe.

I wanted to take photos of the process as well, but we both had our hands full (and dirty), so that didn’t happen. Maybe next time! This is something which I’ll be doing again soon, I think.

Oh and one more thing – I never really knew if my “cutting butter into flour” techniques were correct, but the crust turned out tender and flaky, so I guess something must have gone correctly along the way! (: