Egg Tarts Recipe (Hong Kong tart shells + Portuguese custard filling)
These egg tarts have a Hong Kong style crumbly shell and a Portuguese style creamy custard filling. By skipping the "oil dough" and the "dough folding" step, this recipe could be one of the easiest egg tart recipe you can follow at home.
Equipment
- Pin Roller
- Cookie cutter (3 inch / 7.6 cm)
- Egg tart tins (2.8 inch / 7 cm)
- oven
Ingredients
Filling: Portuguese style egg custard (for 10 egg tarts)
- 3 egg yolks
- 1 egg white
- 30 g sugar
- 65 g sweetened condensed milk
- 10 g milk powder (optional)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 95 g milk
- 95 g heavy whipping cream
Tart Shells: Hong Kong style pastry crust (for 10 egg tarts)
- 100 g unsalted butter - softened
- 35 g powdered sugar - sifted
- ⅛ tsp salt
- 30 g egg (about ½ egg)
- 15 g milk powder
- 160 g cake flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
Make Portuguese style egg custard filling
- Add 3 egg yolks, 1 egg white, 30g sugar, 65g sweetened condensed milk, 10g milk powder, and 1 tsp vanilla extract to a mixing bowl. Whisk until well combined.
- Add 95g milk and 95g heavy whipping cream to the mixing bowl, stir gently until well combined. Cover with food wrap, keep in the fridge.
Make Hong Kong style egg tart shells
- Add 35g sifted powdered sugar and ⅛ tsp of salt to 100g softened butter. Mix with hand mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes until the butter turns pale yellow and fluffy.
- Add ⅓ of the egg (10g) to the butter-sugar mixture, mix with hand mixer on medium speed for about 30 seconds, until all the egg liquid has been absorbed into the butter-sugar mixture. Add another ⅓ of the egg to the butter-sugar mixture, mix with hand mixer ... Repeat until all the egg has been mixed into the butter-sugar mixture.
- Add 1 tsp of vanilla extract to the mixture, roughly mix with hand mixer on medium speed for about 5 seconds.
- Sift in 160g cake flour and 15g milk powder to the mixture, roughly mix with a spatula until crumbly.
- Use your hands to mix the dough until there is no dry flour. Transfer the dough to a plastic food wrap.
- Place the dough in the center of the food wrap, fold the food wrap in half. You should get a rectangle half the size of your original food wrap. Make ½-inch-wide flaps by folding down the three open edges of the rectangle.
- Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a rectangle. Lay the rectangle dough flat on a plate, keep it in the freezer for about 30 min (or in the fridge overnight) until the dough turns hard.
- Lay a layer of food wrap on the work surface, place the hardened egg tart dough on the food wrap, cover with another layer of food wrap over the top. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a 4 mm thick sheet. (If the dough feels to hard to be rolled, you can rest it at room temperature for about 3 minutes. But don't rest it for too long, otherwise it will become soft and sticky.)
- Use a cookie cutter to cut out a disk from the dough sheet. Place the dough disk into an egg tart tin. Gently press the sides and the bottom of the egg tart shell to the tin, so that there is no air between the shell and the tin. Repeat until you use the whole sheet of the dough. (Always keep the rest of the dough sheet in the fridge while you are shaping an egg tart shell.)
Assemble and Bake
- Preheat the oven to 375 °F / 190 °C.
- Take the egg custard filling out from the fridge, strain through a fine-mesh strainer.
- Place assembled egg tart shells on a baking tray. Fill each shell 80% to 90% full with the filling. (Optionally but highly recommended to add some peach or mango cubes to each egg tart shell before filling them up.)
- Bake at 375 °F / 190 °C for about 20 minutes until the custard filling is set and the egg tart shells turns light brown.
- Serve warm with hot tea.