If you've ever had dim sum, you've encountered these delicious egg tarts with a flaky crust and a subtly sweet custard filling. These personal tarts are not as difficult to make as you'd think. There are many recipes out there, but this one I found to be the best:
https://www.196flavors.com/china-egg-tart-dan-tat/. I liked this recipe because it required you to fold the crust creating beautiful crisp layers. Follow along below to make some of your own! Please note that I doubled the recipe for the photos, but the recipe below is the original.
Ingredients (All at room temperature except the cold water)
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 0.5 cup of evaporated milk
- 1.5 cups all purpose flour
- 14 tablespoons of unsalted butter (1.75 sticks) cut into small cubes
- A pinch of salt
- 0.5 cups of granulated white sugar mixed with 1 cup of hot water
- 1 tablespoon of granulated white sugar
- 2 tablespoons of cold water
- 3 large eggs
1. Combine the flour, salt, and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a large bowl. Add the butter and work in the flour with a fork until the contents of the bowl resembles wet sand. You should be able to squeeze the contents to form a clump. I had to start using my hands since it took forever.
2. Disperse the cold water around the dough and mix with a fork until it comes together. It is okay to add a few more drops of water if it is not coming together, but only add a few drops at a time. Too much water can be the death of a good pastry crust.
3. Once combined, cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Try to do the next few steps relatively quickly as the more the dough is worked with, the stickier it will get. That being said, the dough is very forgiving.
4. Flour your working surface (I used a giant wooden cutting board). Flour your rolling pin. Put the chilled dough on top and roll it out to 8" by 20". Feel free to dust extra flour because the dough will be sticky at first.
5. You will now do a letter turn which resembles folding a piece of paper into thirds so it fits in an envelope. Split the dough in your mind into three sections. Fold the left section onto the middle section.
6. Fold the right section onto the middle section. Rotate the rectangle 90 degrees then dust the surface with flour.
7. Roll out the dough again repeating steps 5 and 6. It will be much easier this time. Wrap the dough and chill it in the refrigerate for 30 minutes.
8. The dough resting will give you plenty of time to make the custard base. Whisk the eggs and milk together. Add the sugar water mixture and vanilla and whisk some more. Also preheat the oven to 400 degree Fahrenheit.
9.Strain the custard base through a sieve to get out all the air bubbles.
10. Roll out the chilled dough onto a floured surface to about 0.25" thick. Cut the dough into circles that are slightly larger than the molds you are using. Speaking of molds, I used standard size silicon muffin molds and fancy flower molds and they both worked great. A 3.5" cutter cut the perfect size circles for both molds.
11. If you get 12 rounds on your first round, great! If you are like the rest of use, you'll have to recombine the the scrapes to make 2-3 more rounds for a total of 12 rounds. Feel free to bake off the left over dough, it is delicious on its own, but it will be done before the tarts. Put the circles of dough in the molds. Even though I pricked the dough in the pictures, don't!!!! It will lead to leakage. Feel free to press the dough so it fits snug in the molds. Make sure there are no holes.
12. If you have a measuring cup or a bowl with a spout, put the custard base in that. Fill the molds with your custard so it comes almost to the top, but leave a little gap. This will prevent the custard from spilling over and wetting the crust. Stick them in the oven for 15 minutes.
13. Bring your oven down to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for another 12 minutes. After 12 minutes are up, move the pan a little bit to check how jiggly the custard is. If it is really jiggling, bake for another 5 minutes. I had to bake for an extra 10 minutes. It is done if it only jiggles a little bit and feels mostly dry on top. Turn off the oven and leave the door up for 5 minutes. Take the tarts out of the oven and let them cool. They come out of the molds pretty easily.
Enjoy!
