Chinese Egg Tarts

This popular dessert features a silky egg custard that is baked in a crispy, buttery puff pastry shell. This shortcut recipe uses store-bought puff pastry and only takes 15 minutes to prepare.

Chinese egg tarts (aka daan taat) is a dessert consisting of a flaky pastry shell filled with an egg custard, which can be commonly found at dim sum restaurants and Chinese bakeries. This dessert dates back to the 1920s and was developed in Guangzhou, China. It’s a cross between the traditional Cantonese steamed egg pudding and the English custard tart. Back then Guangzhou was the only accessible port to foreign traders and the influence of this dessert comes from Britain’s pastry chefs at the Western-style department stores in the city. The Zhen Guang Restaurant in Guangzhou is also credited with inventing the Chinese egg tart. (source: Wikipedia)

source: www.littlesweetbaker.com/chinese-egg-tarts/

Ingredients

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Yield: 9-12

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 400F and position rack in lower third of oven.
  2. Completely dissolve the sugar in the hot water and set aside to cool.
  3. Roll out the pastry dough to 12 x 12 inches or 14 x 14 inches and cut out 9-12 circles using a 4 inch cookie cutter. Fit the pastry circles into the foil tart tins and place on baking sheet.
  4. Whisk the eggs, egg yolk, evaporated milk, vanilla, and sugar water together. Stir in the room temperature sugar solution. Strain the egg mixture into a large measuring cup through a fine sieve. Carefully pour into tart shells, filling to just below the rim.
  5. Bake at 400F for 10-15 minutes until the edges are lightly brown. Please keep an eye on the tarts as they are baking. As soon as the custard starts to puff, you need to open the oven door 2-3 inches to prevent the filling from puffing up too much and collapsing when cooled.
  6. Once the edges start to brown, reduce the heat to 350F and bake for another 10-15 minutes or until the custard is done. You can test the filling by inserting a toothpick into the custard, if it can stand on its own, it’s done.
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