Finally!!! A Failproof Buttery Egg Tart Recipe!

YIPPEE!!! I have managed to conquer the failure of my egg tart baking!

Finally! I have baked these buttery egg tarts with NO worries!

All thanks to these... Truly Unshrinkable Sweet Tart Pastries!

Absolutely unshrinkable and amazing!

I always thought that tart pastries are NOT difficult to bake as I didn't have NO problem at all baking, this, this and this.

Until August 2013, I was experiencing a series of never-ending failing egg tart pastry baking as mentioned in this post. Due to this, I became interested to know the basics of tart pastry baking and these facts are what I have learned:

(1) Accordingly to All Recipe, the four basic ingredients of tart / pie pastry are usually flour + salt, fat and water. Most pastry recipes should work if the ratio of three parts flour, two parts fat, and one part liquid (also known as 3-2-1 dough) is used.

(2) Accordingly to All Recipe and many of my baking books, vegetable shortening doughs are easier to work with as they hold their shape better than all-butter pastry, but the flavour won't be as fragrant and nice.

(3) To minimise dough from shrinking during baking, the dough lined on the pie pan should relax in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or more before baking.

(4) Blind baking by lining a tart pastry with parchment paper and filling it with pie weights can help to secure the pastry onto the baking tin.

I'm excited to find this Great Unshrinklable Sweet Tart Crust recipe by Smitten Kitchen! Interestingly, this all-butter pastry recipe uses only the basic technique of 3-2-1 dough plus freezing before baking and requires NO blind baking. Guess what? It works!!! How cool is that?! - Totally!

Apart from discovering this amazing Great Unshrinklable Sweet Tart Crust recipe, I came across another fail-proof egg tart pastry by Ellen from Cuisine Paradise. Ellen blind-baked her tart crusts first and then used them subsequently for her egg tart baking. Her pastry recipe contains slightly higher butter content but works very well for her and even her egg tart baking.

And so, I did the same...

Baking both recipes with foil and pie weights.

The foil baking method didn't work for Cuisine Paradise's pastry but the pie weights did.

See! These Smitten Kitchen's sweet tart crusts are unshrinkable!

For my curiosity, I did this to compare both recipes. Clearly, the Smitten Kitchen's shrunk the least.

Thinking that my egg tart baking might work this time but it didn't!

Although this method works for Ellen from Cuisine Paradise, I'm surprised that both pre-baked tart crusts cannot be used for egg tart baking. Clearly, blind-baking the pastry first didn't work for my egg tart baking and I don't know why...

Boy: Mummy, your egg tarts failed again!
Man: Mummy, why didn't you learn from your mistakes?

Sweetie, mummy is not giving up and I will learn from my mistakes. So, I did this...

I made these unshrinkable pastry again and freeze them.

Making the egg tart filling

I tried filling the pastry to 60% and they didn't shrink at all.

Seeing this, I become brave filling the pastry to 85% and they all work!

Adapting the concept of freezing the tart pastry before baking, I managed to fill the pastries with egg tart filling up to 85%!!! All 10 out of 10 egg tarts that I have baked are all successful!!!

YIPPEE!!!

For the benefit of all egg tart lovers, this is the fail proof egg tart recipe.... Yes!!! It is 100% fail proof for me!!!

A taste of success! Sweet!

Makes ten 7cm round tarts

For the pastry:

(mostly adapted from The Great Unshrinkable Sweet Tart Crust from Smitten Kitchen)
115g all-purpose flour
30g icing sugar
a pinch of salt
70g butter cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg yolk

For the filling:

(mostly adapted from the book, Agnes Chang's Delightful Snacks and Dim Sum by Agnes Chang and also here at Frozen Wings)

80g caster sugar

160ml boiling water

2 eggs

2/3 tsp white vinegar

Note: Colour of the filling may vary depending on the colour of the eggs used. If you are concern of your egg tarts not being yellow enough, you can use a drop of two yellow colouring but I didn't.

For the pastry:

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar and salt together. Using a pastry blender or a food processor, cut pieces of butter into the dry ingredients to resemble coarse crumbs. Add egg yolk a little at a time, pulsing or mixing in after each addition. Knead the dough just enough to incorporate any dry ingredients. Wrap the dough in clingwrap and chill for about 2 hrs before rolling.

Roll out chilled dough on floured sheet of baking paper to 3-4 mm thick. Using a round cutter to cut the pastry into shapes. Using the floured baking paper as aid, lift, transfer and mould the pastry into tart pans. Trim off excess pastry draping off the edges. Line each pastry with baking paper or baking paper cups and stack them up and place them in the freezer for 1 hour or even longer (preferably!) until ready to use.

For the filling:

Stir in sugar in boiling water until fully dissolved. Set aside to cool completely. Add eggs and vinegar and whisk slightly until combine. Pour mixture through a sieve and discard remaining egg left on the strainer. Leave it aside.

To assemble and bake:

Preheat oven to 180°C or 160°C fan forced. Remove the frozen pastry and pour filling up to 85-90%! Yes, I'm right! 85-90%! Bake the tarts for 25 mins or until filling is set. Please do not over-bake tarts at too high temperature or longer duration as the bubbling and puffing of filling will ruin their smooth, glossy and velvety textures and looks.

Remove the tart from the oven and allow them to cool slightly before removing them from the tart pans. Serve them warm or at room temperature.

Hope that you have a wonderful experience baking and enjoying these home-baked egg tarts at home!

Happy Baking
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