Egg Tart (Dan Tat)

My search for the perfect egg custard tart, or dan tat, has come to an end. I've been testing recipes for over a year. I've been playing with different recipes, and tweaking ones I thought were good. I have now come to a conclusion.

This recipe for egg tarts is exactly like the ones at a good dim sum place. It's flaky like puff pastry but still buttery and crumbly like shortcrust pastries. It's what a good egg tart should be.

I tried 3 different recipes in the same day. Not caring about the way they looked by the third recipe, I stuffed them into the egg tart tin/mold and baked away. Unknowingly, that last recipe was everything I ever wanted in a recipe.

So these egg tarts aren't as pretty as they can be, but they taste so delicious. I will have to make these again, paying extra attention to making them pretty next time for you.

You can see all those layers that make it so flaky and crumbly. They hold their shape when you bite into them. It's perfect.

Most of the recipe is by weight, instead of volume measurements. I recommend you go invest in a food scale. It's a very handy kitchen tool. I use mines many times a week. Without further a due, here is the recipe:

Water Dough:
250 g all-purpose flour
1/2 egg, beaten
25 g sugar
13 g shortening
75 g cold water

Oil Dough:
150 g cold butter
250 g shortening
200 g all-purpose flour

Egg Filling:
80 g sugar
280 ml cold water
4 large eggs
80 ml half and half

1. Make oil dough first. Put flour in a large mixing bowl. Add in butter, and cut using a pastry cutter. Then add shortening. Use a pastry cutter to combine into a dough.
2. Place in plastic wrap and freeze until firm. Mine takes about an hour.
3. For water dough: Put flour in a large bowl. Add in egg, sugar, and shortening. Mix. Add in cold water. Mix until a dough forms. Do not over mix.
4. Place in plastic wrap and freeze until firm.
5. After doughs are firm. Preheat oven to 350F. Make egg filling.
6. For egg filling: Boil water with sugar, until sugar dissolves. Let cool.
7. Mix eggs with half & half using a fork. Try not to add bubbles.
8. After sugar cools, add to egg mixture. Sieve mixture twice. Cover and keep in fridge until ready.
9. Roll out the oil dough into a rectangle.
10. Roll out the water dough into a rectangle that is twice as long as the oil.
11. Put the oil dough in the center of the water dough. Fold up both ends of the water dough to meet in the center, covering the oil dough completely.
12. Roll out flat. Fold into quarters. Freeze 20 minutes. Repeat twice.
13. Roll out flat and thin, then cut dough using a round cookie cutter a little bigger than the tart tin's diameter.
14. Place each circle into the tart tin (mines were 2 inches in diameter on top), and press into mold. Repeat with all of dough and mold.
15. Place molds on a baking sheet. Pour egg mixture into prepared mold until 4/5 full.
16. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden. Do not let the centers bubble up or form spheres. Your oven is too hot if it does.

You will love these, I promise.

Mini Fruit Tarts

I made mini fruit tarts before, but not this tiny. These can be eaten in one bite, a little bigger than the size of a quarter. I made 70+ tart shells from the dough, which is enough for a 9 inch tart shell. I made these mini fruit tarts for my fiance's co-workers. They were a complete hit!

So the recipe for the original fruit tarts can be found here. Make the dough and pastry cream, then follow the directions below to make them extra miniature. If you don't have a food processor, you can cut the butter into the flour using a pastry cutter.

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

After chilling the dough for 2 hours, roll the dough out on lightly floured surface to 1/8 inch thick. Using rolling pin bands will help make the dough thickness even throughout. 

Use a 2 inch round cookie cutter with scalloped edges to cut out several small shell pieces. Flip a miniature muffin pan upside down. You will be using the back of the muffin pan to shape the shells. Place one shell piece on each muffin-hill. Try to center it in the middle.

Bake for 5 - 7 minutes, or until light golden. Remove baked shells, and repeat with remaining dough.

Proceed by filling each shell with a small amount of pastry cream and decorate with fruits. Enjoy!

 The recipe for the original fruit tarts can be found here.

Eclair Tarts

My boyfriend loves eclairs. However, I don't want to bake the same dessert over and over, it would get boring quick. So I came up with a new dessert idea...eclair tarts! It would still taste like an eclair, but I wouldn't be baking the exact same thing. Problem solved!

These eclair tarts were delicious. The tart shell is soft and crumbles apart gently when you bite into it. Just wonderful! I think you will enjoy eating this!

Tart Shell:

1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 egg yolks

2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

Filling:

1 (5 oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix

2 1/2 cups cold milk

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate Glaze:

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup whole milk

1 tbs light corn syrup

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 oz semisweet chocolate chips

2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

For shells: Preheat oven to 325 F.

Cream butter until soft. Beat in sugar and vanilla. Then add egg yolks and beat until creamy. Gradually stir in flour until well mixed.

Lightly spray tart molds with oil spray. Take about 1 tablespoon of dough and press into mold, spreading dough as thin as possible.

Bake in oven for about 10 minutes. Cool and remove from tart mold. I used a toothpick to help me get them out. Fill them with the whipped vanilla filling and drizzle with chocolate glaze.

For filling: Combine pudding mix and milk in medium bowl according to package directions. In a separate bowl, beat cream with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Beat in 1//4 cup powdered sugar and vanilla. Fold whipped cream into pudding. Use filling to fill tart shells.

For glaze: Combine butter, milk, corn syrup, and vanilla in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat until butter is melted. Decrease heat to low, add the chocolate chips and whisk until melted. Turn off heat and add powdered sugar, and whisk until smooth. Drizzle over filled tart shells.

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!!!

Key Lime Pie Tarts

I visited my parent's house this week, and my boyfriend also came along. He wanted a key lime pie, but my parent's oven is broken. They have a small convection oven, but a 9" pie pan will not fit in it. That's how small it is. I came up with the solution to make key lime pie tartlets instead.

I used four 4.75" tart pans. They taste exactly the same as a real key lime pie, but it's in individual snack size!

Recipe:

Ingredients:

For Crust:

1 1/4 cups of graham cracker crumbs (approximately 9 cracker sheets)

2 Tbs sugar

5 Tbs unsalted butter, melted

For Filling:

1 (14 oz) can of sweetened condensed milk

5 large egg yolks

1/2 cup of Key Lime Juice

For Topping:

3/4 cup chilled heavy cream

2 Tbs powdered sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375F.

Stir graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter together until well combined. Press mixture evenly onto bottom and up side of each tartlet pan. Bake crust for 10 minutes and allow to cool on a rack. Leave oven on.

To make filling, whisk together condensed milk and yolks until well combined. Add in the lime juice and whisk all together. Pour filling into each tart crust, and bake for 15 minutes. Cool the pie completely, and refrigerate.

Before serving, whisk the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Add in powdered sugar and whisk until well combined. Serve on top of each key lime tart.

My parents also do not own a stand mixer, I made the whip cream with my hands and a whisk. My hand got super tired when I started to see the stiff peaks. If you own a stand mixer, please use it. Unless whisking by hand is your domain. =] 

I fill the crusts with the filling mixture:

The finished key lime pie tarts with hand whipped whip cream. The parents also don't have piping bags, I piped it by making a piping bag with parchment paper.

Fruit Tart

A fruit tart is all you need to feel refresh during Spring time. These fruit tarts have an unshrinkable tart shell and delicious pastry cream. Each decorated with fruits such as strawberries, blackberries, mango, and kiwi.

Recipe:

Tart Shell:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick plus 1 tablespoon of very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 large egg

Pastry Cream:

5 extra-large egg yolks, room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 1/2 cups scalded milk

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon heavy cream

To make dough: Pulse the flour, sugar and salt together in the bowl of a food processor. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in. (You’re looking for some pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and some the size of peas.) Stir the yolk, just to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses–about 10 seconds each–until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds. Just before you reach this stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change–heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and, very lightly and sparingly, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing. Chill the dough, wrapped in plastic, for about 2 hours before rolling.

To make cream: In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the egg yolks and sugar on medium-high speed for 4 minutes, or until very thick. Reduce to low speed, and add the cornstarch.

With the mixer still on low, slowly pour the hot milk into the egg mixture. Pour the mixture into a medium saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens, 5 to 7 minutes. Don't be alarmed when the custard comes to a boil and appears to curdle; switch to a whisk and beat vigorously. Cook, whisking constantly, for another 2 minutes; the custard will come together and become very thick, like pudding. Stir in the vanilla, Cognac, butter, and heavy cream. Pour the custard through a sieve into a bowl. Place plastic wrap directly on the custard and refrigerate until cold.

To roll the dough: Butter a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Roll out chilled dough on floured sheet of parchment paper to 12-inch round, lifting and turning dough occasionally to free from paper. (Alternately, you can roll this out between two pieces of plastic, though flour the dough a bit anyway.) Using paper as aid, turn dough into 9-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom; peel off paper. Seal any cracks in dough. Trim overhang to 1/2 inch. Fold overhang in, making double-thick sides. Pierce crust all over with fork.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Or Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking. This method requires no weight. Weight is needed if baking immediately as below:

Line the tart shells with a piece of buttered aluminum foil, butter side down, and fill them with dried beans or rice. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the beans and foil, prick the bottom of the shells all over with a fork, and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes until lightly browned. Set aside to cool.

Before serving, fill the tart shells with the pastry cream. Arrange the berries decoratively on top of the cream.