One of my favorite winter break traditions is to bake with my family. This year, we chose to venture away from the minimal-effort boxed brownies and opted to take on the challenging feat of egg tarts.
Egg tarts are sweet custard-filled pastries typically made with a dough of a similar consistency to puff pastry. Each individual tart is about the size of a cupcake and compacted into a couple inches of pastry and sweetened egg custard filling.
These desserts are widely associated with Chinese cuisine and culture, but have actually been derived from the British and Portuguese, with slightly different renditions for each background.
My mother and I made slight alterations to a recipe we found online to match our Korean palates — our final recipe consisted of much less sugar than what the original recipe called for. We didn’t need to make an extra trip to the grocery store, as most of the ingredients were kitchen staples. By the end, we had 12 perfectly shaped egg tarts, just enough to share with friends and family.
The combination of these ingredients “egg-cellently” worked together to produce a subtly sweet taste all in one bite. If baked correctly, the egg custard filling should almost melt in your mouth. The custard itself tastes just sweet enough to distinguish from the subtle egg flavor. The flaky, crumbly crust pairs perfectly with the light custard.
Prep time: 20 minutes
Bake time: 35 minutes
Total cooking time: Approximately one hour
Ingredients/Materials:
Muffin tin
4 egg yolks
2 pie crusts
⅘ cup of milk
½ cup of heavy whipping cream
5 tablespoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and vanilla extract together. Set aside once incorporated.
- Place a small pot on the stove top and pour in the milk and heavy whipping cream. Before turning the heat on, add in sugar and stir with a wooden spoon.
- On low heat, warm up the mixture just before it seems like it will boil, then take the pot off the stovetop to cool down.
- Once it is completely cooled, slowly combine with the egg yolks and stir gently.
- Using the mouth of a glass or cup, cut out small circles of the pie crust and mold them individually inside the muffin tin — this is the outer crust of the egg tarts.
- Carefully pour the filling into each tart, filling the tin about 70 percent, so it has some room to rise in the oven.
- Bake for about 35 minutes or until golden brown.
- Cool down before eating. Enjoy!
Egg tarts are elegant and intricate in their own way, without all the hassle. Surprisingly simple to recreate, these world-class desserts are tasty enough to impress anyone. Perfect for potlucks, meetings or simply a night in with friends, egg tarts are creative yet flavorsome — a refreshing break from conventional baked goods.
In the chance that you are left with excess pie crust pieces and/or egg custard mixture, this recipe can be customized into other makeshift treats using staple ingredients such as frozen berries and jam.
My mother and I decided to throw some frozen blackberries and blueberries into the leftover egg tart shells. Once we distributed the leftover few drops or so of the custard filling in with the frozen berries, we baked them alongside the other egg tarts and found ourselves with refreshing and tasteful mini berry pies.
Whether you choose to stick with the original egg tart recipe or make it your own using a compilation of leftover ingredients in your fridge, these “eggs-quisite” treats are worth breaking out of your shell for.
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