egg tarts

蛋撻

Egg tarts aren’t too difficult to make, but are a little tedious. Two tips that will help: 1). don’t skimp on buying nice butter! For this recipe in particular, where the puff pastry shines, you can actually taste a difference. 2). keep the dough as cold as possible at all times. This maintains the puff pastry layers so you get that flaky effect.

Credit for the puff pastry goes to iHEARTcookinggg; check out her video if you’d prefer a visual aid!. The filling is my mom’s recipe, and its considerably less sweet than what you’d normally find in bakeries. These are the molds that I use; they work extremely well for egg tarts, although cupcake molds work just fine.

Two batches of the dough and one batch of filling will make about two dozen egg tarts, if you use the same mold.

Ingredients

Butter dough

  • 120 g (1 cup) all-purpose flour
  • 1 3/4 (or 14 tbsp) stick unsalted butter (make sure its cold!)

Water dough

  • 120 g (1 cup) all-purpose flour
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1/4 cup cold water

Egg custard filling

  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 4 eggs
  • 75 g (1/3 cup) granulated sugar

Directions

  1. Mix the AP flour and butter until it turns into a dough. A food processor helps, but it can be done with a spatula and some brute force. Wrap in saran wrap and keep it in the fridge until you pull it out! It helps to shape it into a roughly square shape.
  2. Mix the AP flour, egg yolks, and water, and mix until it forms a dough.
  3. On a floured surface, roll out the water dough into a square, about 12” x 12”. Place the (cold!) butter dough in the middle, and wrap it in the water dough.
  4. Roll out the dough evenly (i.e. making sure its not lopsided with butter dough on only one side) into a rectangular shape, about 1/4” thick. Fold the dough up in thirds, cover it in saran wrap, and return to the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes to keep cold. I highly recommend checking out the video above!
  5. Repeat twice more, but folding in quarters this time (total is 3 x 4 x 4). The dough can be prepared several days beforehand and saved in the fridge; roll it out to about 1/4” thickness again when you’re ready to shape and fill.
  6. When ready, preheat your oven to 400°F, mix the filling ingredients, and whisk together until smooth. Strain through a sieve/cheesecloth if you’d like - you’ll have a smoother and prettier custard. If you don’t strain it, the taste doesn’t change, but you’ll likely have little white flecks on the custard.
  7. Using a cookie cutter, cut circles out of the dough. Press it into the bottom of a well-buttered tart mold, and slowly shape the dough upwards until its near the top of the mold. Prick a few holes in the bottom with a fork.
  8. Fill each tart with egg filling. Make sure not to overfill - the custard will expand a bit!
  9. Bake at 400°F for 25-30 minutes. The custard will expand, but deflate when taken out of the oven. If you want absolutely picture-perfect custard, bake it for about 15 minutes, before lowing the oven temperature to 350°F for another 10-15 minutes.
  10. Let cool for a few minutes before popping each tart out of its mold. These are amazing warm, but still keep well in the fridge!

Picture references

Pictures courtesy of 曾佳平/Andy Tseng.

After rolling out the dough the final time, circles are cut out and pressed into molds. You can see the little fork holes in the next image!

The egg is slowly filled into each shell. You can see a bucket of ice on the side, which is where I kept the finished tart shells while I was pressing the rest. Again, keeping the dough cold is what preserves those puff pastry layers!

The finished product is delicious while warm, but can be stored for several days in the fridge.