Thursday 21 August 2014

Hong Kong Style Egg Tarts

Hi

Zoe could witness how many times I had attempted to make egg tarts.  Finally, I had succeeded in making it.

Look at these beautiful egg tarts.  Did the photo speak for itself?  These wobbly egg fillings, was not sweet at all.  It’s soft but still holds its shape.  It had smooth and silky texture and the aroma, when hot from the oven, would make you mouth-watering and it really melted into the mouth almost instant.
You know what?  The first few times when I made these tarts, it was a complete failure.  I couldn’t remove the tarts from the mould as they were all stuck to it.  My children and I tried “shaking” and hoping it would fall off and they even tried tapping the mould with the spoon! Some bloggers have advised “knocking” against the table top.  But no matter what method I had tried, it simply refused to budge.  My children had given up and they decided to eat it directly from the mould.  LOL!
After so many attempts, I have finally understood how was it like to remove the tarts from the mould without much effort.  There’s no special trick or secret recipe to it.  Zoe highlighted many things to me and one of them was whether did I roll out the dough.  Haha! Gotcha!  This was the step which I skipped!  It didn’t seem significant at first, but this was the reason my egg tarts were failing miserably…
What I took away from this experience is that there is no easy way out and every step that each recipe mentioned has its purpose.
Here you go, the recipe adapted from Christine Ho, a very popular Hong Kong bloggers.  I got one of her cookbook Easy Recipes – A Selection of Simple Classics, during my last Hong Kong trip.

HAPPY BAKING!

INGREDIENTS
Crust
200g       plain flour / all purpose flour
25g         cake flour1
125g       butter
65g         caster sugar (I reduced it to 35g)
1 no.        egg, lightly whisked
A dash    vanilla extract

Custard
2 nos.      eggs
70g         caster sugar (35g)
150ml     hot water
75mil      evaporatoed milk

METHODS
Custard Fillings
Add sugar into hot water, mix until completely dissolved.  Let it cool down.

Whisk the egg with evaporated milk, Pour in the sugar water and vanilla extract.  Mix well.

Sift the egg mixture to get rid of any foam.

Crust
Place butter at room temperature until softened.  Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer over medium speed until the mixture is smooth fluffy and light in colour.

Add the whisked egg, half at a time.  Beat at low speed.  Add vanilla extract, mix well.

Sift in the flours in two batches, scraping down the sides of the bowl between additions with a spatula, and make sure all ingredients are combined well.  Knead into a dough.

Roll out the dough to 0.5mm in thickness.  Cut dough with a tart tin or a cookie cutter that is just a bit small than your 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 the sides.   While pressing the dough, turn the tart in clockwise / anti-clockwise in order to make an even tart shell.  Trim away any excess dough2.

Preheat oven to 200ºC.  Position rack-in the lowest part of the oven3.

Carefully pour in the fillings into each tart shell.  Bake for 10-15mins until the edges are lightly brown.

Reduce the heat to 180ºC.  Keep an eye on them.  Once you see the custard puffing up a bit, pull the oven door open ajar about 2-3 inches4.  Bake for another 10-15mins until the custard is set5.  Check by inserting a toothpick into the custard.  If it stands on its own, it is cooked.

TIPS
1If cake flour is not available, you can use plain flour only, 225gm in total.

2The buttery shortcrust pastry is the perfect crumble.  Do not make it too thick or bake it for too long as it might turn hard.

3Placing the tarts on the lower rack in oven can help baking the crust bottom properly before the custard gets heated up too quickly.

4At the very last stage of baking, pull the oven door open a few inches.  This method is to avoid the custard from becoming puffed too high.  Otherwise, the custard would collapse once it cools down.

5The power and design of every oven is different.  Please refer to your own manual.


I’m also submitting this for Cook-Your-Books #15.  
Cook-Your-Books is organised and hosted
by Joyce of Kitchen Flavour.


I’m also linking this post to Little Thumbs Up and the theme for August is Flour .  Little Thumbs Up is organised by Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids, Doreen from My Little Favourite DIY and for August, it is hosted by Diana from the Domestic Goddess Wannabe.


8 comments:

  1. Amy , your tarts look beautifully-baked ! Glad that your kids didn't have to eat it from the mould this time lol

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  2. Hi Amy, Your egg tarts looks so scrumptious! I prefer my crust to be more golden brown and I never roll my crust and they always fall out on their own lol!

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  3. Hi Amy,
    Your egg tart looks perfect! And beautiful lovely colour! Wish I have a few right now for my midnight snack!
    Thanks for linking to CYB!
    p/s : did not see your link there! :)

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  4. "Ontem foi embora.Amanhã ainda não veio. Temos somente hoje, comecemos!!!Qualquer ato
    de amor, por menor que seja, é um trabalho pela paz" (Madre Teresa de Calcutá)
    Um grande abraço, Marie.

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  5. Hi Amy,

    You made it!!! HURRAY!!!!

    I had lots of problems when I was baking my egg tarts and can see your pain of not baking successful egg tarts... LOL! I love to try these made from Christine Ho's recipes too :D

    Zoe

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  6. hi amy, great work! i know how excited it is baking a successful batch of egg tarts...it's been so long too i last baked mine. Too lazy!

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  7. Hi Amy, wow! Your hard work really paid off!

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  8. Hi Amy, can I know what size the tart mould u r using? how many tart mould do i need?

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