Egg Custard Tart

I've been looking for the perfect egg custard tart recipe for over a month now. I haven't found one...yet...but I know I will. However, I did run into one I deemed as close as possible to the egg custard tarts I have in hong kong bakeries. The crust is crumbly-flaky, but not puff pastry flaky. It is almost perfect!


Recipe from A Tale of Crumbs

"Water" dough


200g All purpose flour
  50g Cake flour
1-1.5tsp double action baking powder (i could only get single action baking powder)

30g sugar (tweak according to your sweet tooth)


  80g Lard
125ml Ice Cold water

Oil dough
100g Cake flour (sift this!)
0.5 tsp double action baking powder
125g Lard

Egg custard filling
80g white sugar
280ml Cold water
4 large eggs
40ml full cream milk
40ml cream

For the Water dough,
1. Mix the flours, baking powder and fine sugar.
2. Sift this resulting mixture into a clean bowl and cut in the lard.
3. Mix in iced water (or pulse using a food processor) until the resulting dough forms into a ball. 
4. Wrap in plastic film and let the dough relax in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

For the Oil dough
5. Add the baking powder into the cake flour and mix throughly.
6. Sift the flour into a cold clean bowl.
7. Cut in the lard into the flour and mix till it forms into a clean ball of uniform paste. (you can use a food processor for this.)
8. The paste should be close to spreading consistency but not fluid-like.
9. Place the oil dough ball in the center of the water dough circle and gently wrap up from the sides till its sealed without air pockets.
10. Lightly flour your kitchen tabletop and roll out the dough into a rectangle.
11. Now you can proceed with rolling and folding it like classic french puff pastry. (at least 6 turns with resting / chilling periods)
12. Make 1 extra turn at the end.
13. Measure the longest diameter of your tart mold and cut with a round cookie cutter larger than the mold by a couple of millimeters.
14. Gently and carefully line your tart mold with the cut out dough without over pressing the laminated layers. 
15. The dough pastry may look as if it was too much for the tart mold, but when it bakes, the sides will creep down, so make allowance for that.
16. Poke some holes with a fork in the base of the dough.
17. Preheat your over to 200 degrees C.

For the Egg custard filling,
18. Boil water with sugar, till all melted and keep aside till cool.
19. Crack the eggs, add in milk and cream and gently stir with a whisk until well mixed. (Try not to introduce too much bubbles)
20. Add in the cooled sugar water and gently mix well.
21. Sift the entire mixture through the finest sieve you can get your hands on and into a bowl/coffee pitcher.

22. Lower the temperature of your oven to 160 degrees C and place the tart shells onto a baking sheet in the middle layer of the oven.
23. Prebake these shells for about 10minutes or till almost ready. (constantly check through the glass window of your oven to make sure they are NOT already browned!!!)
24. Carefully remove from the oven and let the shells cool down for about 10-15minutes.
25. Lower the oven temperature to 120 degrees C.
25. Using the coffee pitcher, carefully pour in the egg custard mixture till about 2-3mm from the brim of each tart. 
26. Carefully return these filled tarts to the middle layer of the oven and bake till the custard starts setting.  (Typically, after an initial 5-10 minutes of baking, i will open the door of the oven every 5 minutes to tap/gently shake the baking sheet and observe if the egg custard remains wobbly.)
27. The texture point to stop is to first look out for the egg custard to be that between creme brulee and pudding like.
28. Remove from the oven and let it cool on a cooling rack. (you should observe a nice sheen/gloss on the custard surface)
29. Start munching already!!!





12 comments :

Gwen said... Best Blogger Tips [Reply to comment] Best Blogger Templates
May 3, 2011 at 8:14 PM

Hi Vincent,

I have added my blog to your site!

Britany Nguyen said... Best Blogger Tips [Reply to comment] Best Blogger Templates
August 16, 2011 at 7:28 PM

Those egg tarts look perfect! I was wondering if shortening or butter can be substituted for lard in the crust recipe. If so, which one would be the better substitute? Thank you so much!

Gwen said... Best Blogger Tips [Reply to comment] Best Blogger Templates
August 16, 2011 at 9:49 PM

Hi Britany,

I would probably use shortening since it's more similar to lard than butter. I have substituted lard with shortening in other recipes, but not this one. Let me know how it turns out.

Aileenwo.com said... Best Blogger Tips [Reply to comment] Best Blogger Templates
August 26, 2011 at 3:41 AM

wow, thanks for the recipe and i can see you really put a lot of effort into doing this.. especially oil and water dough and rolling part.. keep up the good work!

Rosamundwo
Rosamundwo.com

Aileenwo.com said... Best Blogger Tips [Reply to comment] Best Blogger Templates
August 26, 2011 at 4:08 AM

Hi Gwen

I don't know how to roll puff pastry.. do you have any pictorial step by step on how to roll it?

Anonymous said... Best Blogger Tips [Reply to comment] Best Blogger Templates
May 18, 2013 at 12:20 PM

Hello Gwen,

Would you please advise is cream milk similar to heavy whipping cream? Also, what is the cream that you are refering to after the cream milk?

Thanks in advance.

Gwen said... Best Blogger Tips [Reply to comment] Best Blogger Templates
May 18, 2013 at 9:43 PM

@Anonymous

Full cream milk is full fat milk. It is not heavy cream.
The second cream can be either heavy whipping cream or whipping cream. You can also use 80 ml of half and half, and disregard both milk and heavy cream. Hope this helps.

Anonymous said... Best Blogger Tips [Reply to comment] Best Blogger Templates
June 12, 2013 at 2:40 AM

Hi

How thin should the dough be before I use the cookie cutter? thanks.

James Ng said... Best Blogger Tips [Reply to comment] Best Blogger Templates
December 5, 2014 at 3:02 AM

It looks really attractively delicious ... Color good, the crust is nearly perfect look. Good sharing ...

One question, i still not understand why need to poke some holes with a fork in the base of the dough? What is the purpose?

Thanks

e|o3 said... Best Blogger Tips [Reply to comment] Best Blogger Templates
July 19, 2018 at 4:40 PM

This recipe makes how many tarts and what’s the size of mould do i need?

Unknown said... Best Blogger Tips [Reply to comment] Best Blogger Templates
October 27, 2018 at 5:56 PM

I am sure in The US this refers to whole milk don’t use low or non fat milk.

Anonymous said... Best Blogger Tips [Reply to comment] Best Blogger Templates
January 16, 2024 at 9:36 AM

How many tarts does this recipe make?

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