A while back, I've made some Nian Gao Portuguese Egg Tart (recipe HERE) using frozen puff pastry that's super easy to make and tasted amazing. However, the biggest problem with using frozen puff pastry as the tart shells is that you need to eat them warm from the oven. If left to cool down for a couple of hours, or overnight, the tart base turns moist and soggy. My mum did try reheating the soggy tarts (left overnight) in the toaster oven, but it only harden them up instead of crisping them back.
So in order to get a batch of nian gao egg tarts that can retain their taste and quality for at least overnight, and won't kill me at the stage of preparing the tart dough (because enclosed kitchen with NO aircon in the house is a big no-no for trying to work with cold butter, it'll never work), I decided to try out the Hongkong style egg tart kind of tart shells instead!
So let's get over with the ingredients, so we can get started!
To get 6 - 8 egg tarts, depending on the size of your mould and how thick you prefer your tart crust to be, you'll need:
For the tart crust:
175g all purpose (plain) flour
100g salted butter (soften at room temperature)
25g icing sugar
10-15ml cold water
you can also use unsalted butter and add a generous pinch of salt
For the egg custard:
1 whole egg + 1 egg yolk
30g castor sugar
160ml milk
60ml heavy cream
Filling:
(CNY) Brown Sugar Nian Gao, cut to size to fit to the base of your tart moulds and sliced thinly, to your preference.
Recipe adapted from 饮食地图
I made 6 tarts using my muffin tin, and my tarts were ridiculously thick, I should have made 8 tarts instead. You'll also have extra egg custard left over, which I added a tbsp of unsweeten cocoa powder and a handful of semi sweet chocolate chips in, heat it over small fire to get all the chocolate chips melted before baking them in 4 silicon muffin cups along with the egg tarts to get baked chocolate custard. YUMS!
To get the tart dough, mix the soften butter with icing sugar until fully incorporated before mixing in the flour. It'll be much easier to "knead" the flour in with your hands instead of using a spatula as it'll be easier to gauge how much more cold water you'll need to add in. Start with just 10ml and see if your dough is moist enough to hold up, and add more from there. Depending on your flour hydration, you may need even more than just 15ml.
So once the dough has come together, you can shape it into a disc and wrap it up with clingwrap before popping it into the fridge for at least 1 hour to firm up if you have a rolling pin and an XL round cookie-cutter that's big enough to cut out pieces of round dough that fits exactly into your moulds.
As I do not have a cutter that's big enough, I will be pressing the dough directly into my moulds using my hands. Hence, I just shaped my dough into a log instead, whereby I can easily slice them into 6 (or 8) equal pieces after an hour's of rest in the fridge.
So after the dough has firmed up, you can either roll it out into about slightly less than half a centimetre thick (they will puff up when baked) and cut out large circles that fits into your moulds. Otherwise, divide the dough into 6 (or 8) equal pieces and just use your hands to press down the dough balls into your moulds and shape them nicely up the sides into a tart shell. This will probably take some time and quite a lot of patience.
Do remember to find something (a shot glass or something) to press down on the base of the tarts such that it won't be too thick. I've done so, but my tart base still came out super thick, hence I really should have made 8 tarts instead of 6.
See that thickness? My tart base was as thick as my filling. T.T
So once the tart shells are done, set them back in the fridge while you mix the egg custard mixture. In a clean bowl, crack in the egg and add in the egg yolk and give it a quick whisk to break the yolks. Then, add in the sugar and mix until the sugar has dissolved before mixing in the milk and heavy cream.
Then, get your tart shells out from the fridge and start assembling! First add in your sliced nian gao into the moulds before filling them up to nearly the top (about 90% or slightly more) and then baking them at 190 degree Celsius for 20 to 25 minutes (until your tart shells are browned) if you prefer your egg tarts the Hongkong styled.
I wanted to brown my egg custard as well (like Portuguese styled) and so I baked mine at 225 degree Celsius (but take note my convection oven is EXTREMELY weak, I needed 40 minutes at 250 degree Celsius to burn my basque cheesecake) for about 30 minutes instead.
Tadaa~
Apart from the tart base that's way too thick and left me with barely any filling, it actually still tasted pretty good! The tart shell was crumbly and buttery, and the brown sugar nian gao really complements the egg custard really well!
And even after leaving the tarts overnight, the tart shell won't turn soggy like those frozen puff pastry tarts, yayy!
Till then,
Mia Foo
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