![]() Add the milk, sugar, salt, and egg yolks. To make the custard, combine the cornstarch and cream in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Regardless, you’ll be rewarded with a crispy, flaky shell and a soft, gooey custard filling.ġ/4 cup sugar (use less if you don’t like it too sweet)ġ7.5 ounces frozen puff pastry, thawed according to package directions (you should have 2 sheets)ġ. Next time, I’ll try dropping a vanilla bean, pandan leaf, or orange blossom water into my custard. The recipes I found flavored their custards with vanilla extract, cinnamon and/or lemon peel. Have you come across excellent Portuguese egg tarts in your hometown? These tarts may not be on par with the originals from Pastéis de Belém in Portugal or the famous specimens from Macau’s Lord Stow’s Bakery but I can live with that. In the end, I decided my tarts still tasted amazing so I wasn’t going to worry if my custard puckered or if their tops weren’t adequately splotched. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t achieve the smooth glossy sheen and deep brown patches as seen here. Sometimes, perfection is futile and even unnecessary. If I had one, I could easily create the bruléed top peculiar to Portuguese egg tarts, stress-free!ĥ. nuns’ habits and monks’ cassocks) and the leftover egg yolks were turned into cakes and pastries which were often sold to raise money.Ĥ. Egg tarts were born from happenstance. According to this article, convents and monasteries in 19th century Portugal used large quantities of egg whites for starching clothes (e.g. As with many foods, the recipe evolved to take on local characteristics-cornstarch instead of wheat flour, the non-sprinkling of powdered sugar or cinnamon, etc.ģ. Don’t expect Portuguese egg tarts in Macau to be the same as they are in Portugal. Well, not exactly, but Hong Kong used to be a British colony and traditional English custard tarts are made with short crust pastry.Ģ. I’m guessing that puff pastry is a legacy of the Portuguese egg tart while short crust pastry comes from the Queen. I’ve come across Hong Kong-style egg tarts with shells made from both short crust and flaky, puff pastry and I’ve always wondered why the two variations. And I did learn a few lessons about egg tarts, and myself!ġ. I feared for my oven when I turned it up to 500F (the highest it would go!), especially when it locked itself up and decided it was going to ‘clean’ mode.įollowing Andrea Nguyen’s cue on her blog, I decided to bake the pastries at a lower temperature and switch to broil to finish them off.Īs with many things in life, I chalked it up to a learning process. And trying to acquire the umbra of burnt patches atop the custard was close to hellish. Buying the pastry was easy preventing the custard from curdling–not so much. I’m not much of a baker and I’ve never tried making egg tarts in any shape or form but the recipes I came across online made it seem so simple, especially if you use store bought pastry! Using recipes on and as guidelines, I devised a recipe. The tarts traveled with Portuguese colonials to Macau, and eventually made their way to Hong Kong where they evolved to become a staple at dim sum restaurants and beyond. These delicate custard-filled puff pastry tarts have signature brown-black splotches, a result of the high heat they’re baked at. Now I’ve not had true Portuguese egg tarts, but many a dan taht (romanized for 蛋挞, ‘egg’ in Chinese, and ‘tart’)– those irresistible Hong Kong-style egg tarts - has slid into my happy belly.Īfter a little more research, I found out that pastéis de nata were created in a monastery in Belém, Lisbon over two centuries ago. ![]() Sort of randomly, I came across an article extolling the wonders of pastéis de nata, or Portuguese egg tarts, in a British magazine of all places! Insert a toothpick into the custard, if it stands on its own, it’s done.A flaky, crispy shell houses soft, gooey custard. Bake for another 10 to 15 minutes until the custard is cooked through or the pastry is brown. The custard would collapse once they are cooled down otherwise. This method is to avoid custard from being puffed up too high. Once custard being puffed up a bit, pull the oven door open about 2 to 3 inches. Preheat oven to 200C.Bake tarts for 10-15 minutes until the edges are lightly brown. Fill the pastry with about 80% of the pastry. Beat the egg yolks sieve the egg yolks into the milk mixture. Warm the milk, pour the sugar into the warm milk to dissolve. While pressing the dough, turn the tart tin clockwise/anti-clockwise in order to make an even tart shell. Lightly press the dough with your thumbs, starting from the bottom then up to the sides. Line dough in the middle of tart tins, one by one. Lightly grease the egg tart tins/muffin pan. If no egg tart tin use muffin pan to replace. Cut dough with a cookie cutter that is just a bit smaller than your tart tin in size.
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