The doting hubby has bought me quite a few types of egg tarts. I remember eating egg tarts with crumbly and buttery crust that comes with a little crunchy texture, there are also those soft melt-in-the-mouth type of crust. I am a fan of the former, so Han's peach tart is one of my favorite. There is also a type of tart, in which the filling is made with soybean custard instead of the usual egg custard. Whichever the type of filling is, as long as it has crumbly buttery crust with a crunch, I am in heaven! And so, that prompted me to challenge myself at making egg tarts.
Actually, the thought of mixing and rolling out the dough for egg tart crust is quite daunting enough, not to mention the challenge of achieving a soft and smooth egg custard. These two obstacles, basically the two main tasks of egg tart making, have had me brushing off the idea of making tarts every time it pop into my head. But Aspiring Bakers #10: Easy as Pie (August 2011) gave me all the inspiration and encouragement to give it a shot. I got hold of a recipe for the crust from Mimi Bakery House (but now I cannot find the exact location of this specific crust recipe, *sigh*, I will reproduce it here), which I imagined would give the kind of crust texture I love. I have a recipe for the egg custard filling from a recipe book I bought recently. So armed with both recipes, I put myself to the challenge.
I would say mixing up the ingredients for the crust was not as scary as I imagined. In fact, it was quite a breeze, since it is a method that I am very familiar with when I make my Mum's butter cookies. Rolling out the crust dough and getting it nicely tucked into tart molds was a bit of a challenge, but I am glad I persevered. By trial and error (because I am not sure how much dough is necessary for each mold), I pinched out a portion of dough, roll it into a ball and rolled to ball out flat between two sheets of cling film. It is a technique, or trick as some may like to call it, that I saw in Rachel Allen's cooking program Bake!. Jamie Oliver does that same thing too, but with two sheets of baking paper. No messy floury work surface, minimum clean up, I like it! Next, I rolled the dough into a disk about 2cm wider than the tart mold, placed it over the mold, coaxed the dough into every nook and cranny, and ran the roller over the top of the mold to get rid of excess dough. Whew! Well, that's the whole flow of how I got the dough into the molds.
I think the most interesting part was baking the egg custard filled tarts. The recipe from the book I bought said to bake it for 25 minutes. But around 20 minutes into the baking, my egg custard filling started to swell! It rose like a proud chiffon cake and I was afraid that those filling might just burst inside the oven! Come to think of it, I suppose chiffon cakes would be jealous of those smooth towering domes the egg custards had achieved. But at that moment, in an egg tart, it was just pure horrific domes. I took the whole batch of tarts out quickly, but noticed that those fillings not swelling were still a little wobbly. Worried that the fillings might not be cooked through, I returned the whole tray back to the oven and let it bake its full 25 minutes. Never mind the swelling, it is better than being half-cooked, or worse, uncooked! For the whole of that last 5 minutes, I hovered by the oven anxiously, praying diligently. "Please, don't let my egg fillings morph into chewy rubber! Please!"
Upon cooling, the swelling subsided and no, the fillings were not rubbery, or chewy. In fact, they turned out quite smooth, soft enough (but could be softer), eggy and sweet, complete with my favorite crumbly, buttery crunchy crust!
Two days later, I stumbled upon some information about swelling egg custard filling. This swelling usually happens around 20 minutes into the baking. So that means my egg custard is behaving normally. Okay, I can take that. When this happens, just open the oven door 2-3 inches and let the tart continue baking. From Christine's Recipe, I learned that to check if the custard is fully cooked, just insert a toothpick into the filling. If it remains standing, the filling is done! This blog mentioned the swelling phenomenon too! Knowing that my egg custard is normal calms me down tremendously. I think I will not be too nervous about making egg tarts after this episode.
 |
| The fillings of these tarts swelled and deflated, see how flat they look... |
My first egg tarts
Sweet short crust pastry (from Mimi Bakery House)
(*reproducing ingredients and method as I cannot find exact location of the recipe. My notes are highlighted in blue.)
Group A
200g plain flour
20g milk powder
110g butter
50g icing sugar
1/4 tsp salt
Group B
2 1/2 tbsp cold water
Method for making sweet short crust pastry
1. Mix ingredients A until crumbly. This is done by rubbing cold cubed butter into the flour mixture with the forefinger and thumb. Make sure the rubbing action is light and fast. The final appearance should resemble coarse bread crumbs.
2. Add in B, mix to form dough. When I made this, 2 1/2 tbsp of cold water is enough to form dough.
3. Wrap dough in cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
4. Flatten dough out and press into mold. Refer to descriptions above on how to flatten dough out without messing up the work top and pressing the dough into tart mold.
5. Prick some holes in the dough before blind baking.
6. Blind bake at 190 degC for about 15 minutes or until light golden brown.
7. Leave to cool.
Egg custard filling (adapted from 怎么做必学热门粿与糕点)
4 eggs
100g sugar
120ml evaporated milk
60ml hot water
Method for egg custard filling
1. Add sugar and hot water together and stir until sugar completely dissolves. Set aside to cool.
2. Beat the eggs and add in evaporated milk and sugar syrup from step 1. Strain the egg mixture. I strained it twice.
Assembling the tart for baking
- Once the blind baked tart crust has cooled, pour the egg mixture into the mold until 80% full.
- bake the egg tarts in pre-heated oven at 160 degC for about 25 minutes until egg custard solidifies.
Putting the swelling fillings aside, I had totally enjoyed making these egg tarts. We had them for breakfast the next day, and the kids were all thumbs up for this bake. The Tiny Man had two! The hubby...is a little more expert at food tasting, just gave me an "Okay lah..." Next time, I will make better tarts!
No comments:
Post a Comment