Like a lot of the Hong Kong people, egg-tart is one of my favourite pastries.

Here in Hong Kong, we have two different styles of egg-tarts, one comes with a butter pastry (撻皮) base while the other one comes with puff pastry (酥皮) base.

Egg-tarts with Butter Pastry Base

Egg-tarts with Puff Pastry Base

Personally, I prefer butter pastry base which is more crispy over the puff pastry base.

This week, instead of making bread, I will practise making my first Hong Kong style Egg-tart with butter pastry base.

Hong Kong Style Egg Tart Recipe:

After studying a number of online recipes, I finally arrived at the following.

Making of the Butter Pastry Base

1. Leave the unsalted butter in room temperature and let it soften before use
2. Whisk the butter using a handheld mixer
3. Add caster sugar in two portions and blend it using a slower speed until the mixture turns light yellow
4. Pour in the egg and vanilla extract and blend the mixture until it is smooth
5. Sift in the plain flour, cake flour and mix well
6. Knead the mixture to form a dough
7. Flatten the dough with a roller pin until it is around 5mm thick
8. Using a cup that is slightly larger than the circular egg-tart mould to cut out the dough
9. Press the dough into the tart moulds and let it rest for 15 minute

Making of the Egg-tart filling

1. Mix the caster sugar into hot water and let it cool down before use
2. Beat together the eggs, milk and vanilla extract
3. Pour in the sugar water and stir thoroughly
4. Sift the egg mixture to remove all the air bubbles and sediments
5. Fill the egg-tart base with the filling

Baking

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until the pastry base turned golden.

Lower the temperature to 180°C and bake  for another 10 to 15 minutes.

Remove the egg-tarts from the oven and set aside for 10 minutes before serving.

After having a few bites of my homemade egg-tarts, my wife and I found that the taste is just Ok but …  😂😂

So What Am I Missing?

The filling is sweet but somehow lacks  the natural flavour of the eggs. Moreover, the tart base is a little bit thin and hard. Overall, my egg-tarts are not yet comparable to those from local bakery or café.

Definitely, further practice with focus in the following is necessary:

On Tart-base:

• Add more butter
• Add a pinch of salt to the dough or use salted butter  to get more flavour
• Roll the dough into a thicker sheet which provides a better presentation when shape and bake

On Tart filling:

• Add a pinch of salt to the filling to enrich the flavour

On the process:

• Leave the shaped egg-tart base in the fridge to make the base more manageable
• Adjust the temperature and baking time in order not to over boil the egg-tart filling but still maintaining a golden tart base

As seen from the final product, the filling of my egg-tarts  is slightly burned. Something just like the Portuguese Egg-tart.

Some suggested to open the oven door during the second stage of baking so that the filling will not be over-boiled. However, this seems to be not feasible for me as my oven will stop automatically if the door is pre-maturely opened. May be I should use a lower temperature instead.

Anyway, this is a good attempt for me and I will give myself 70 out of a full mark of 100. 😀😀 

Last but not least, I’m also looking forwards to your valuable advice.  💪💪