Asian Egg Custard Tarts

 

Snowed in? Why not make some egg custards? These are great as breakfast (although one too many may be a bad idea… haha) or as dessert! This recipe is based off of Yvonne Ruperti’s version of Singaporean egg tarts. The recipe is supposed to yield 16 egg tarts, however, count on me to mess up. My crust was too thick, so I had plenty of filling left over. I dumped that into a premade pie crust.

Ingredients:

For the Crust:

• 11 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• A little less than 1/2 cup sugar  – Use less if you don’t want it as sweet. I thought this was more definitely sweet enough.
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 jumbo egg
• 1 and 1/2 cups  all purpose flour

For the Custard Filling:

• A little less than 1/2 cup   sugar – Use less if you don’t want it as sweet. I thought this was more definitely sweet enough.
  
• 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup water
• 2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
• 8 jumbo yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Steps:

1. Crust

A. Grease or dump cupcake paper or aluminum foil into 16 cupcake tins. If you have these tins, which are the ones you see if you buy these egg tarts at an Asian bakery, they are probably better to help you estimate size to form the dough later and also you don’t have to clean them.

B. Mix melted butter, sugar, salt in a large bowl until combined. Then add the egg and stir in the flour until completely combined.

C. Divide dough into 16 portions and roll into balls.

E. Press a dough ball into each cup, pressing dough up sides to about 1/4 inch from top of cup, and maintaining a thickness about 1/8-inch thick.Yvonne’s recipe states to do this, but I believe I did not press the crust thin enough.

D.Chill for 30 minutes. I put plastic wrap over the baking pan tins so the dough doesn’t get too dry. If you intend to leave the dough in the fridge for a while, that may be safer.

2. Custard Filling and Finishing up!

A. To make your filling, simply mix sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a medium bowl. Then add water, cream, yolks, and vanilla until combined.

B. Fill each cup with custard to about 1/8-inch from top of crust (don’t overfill or else you’ll have stuff stuck to the pan like I did). Bake at 375 degrees F until crust is golden and custard is just set, about 20 minutes.If your crust was too thick and you ended up having a whole pie of filling left, you can put them them into a premade pie crust or some other crust size depending on how much you have left. This larger pie will take longer and will take more like 30 minutes or so.

C. Let tarts cool in pan for 15 minutes then carefully transfer to wire rack to cool. Serve room temperature or chilled.

D. For storage, I put them in plastic ziploc bags in the fridge. Do not freeze, or if you do, keep in mind that the flavor will not taste the same afterwards. In the fridge, they can probably last for a couple of days, but not too long.

Oops. Custard filling leaked into pan outside of aluminum so I had some issues getting the aluminum cups out. It wasn’t too bad though. Washing will be a pain though.