Egg tart, shortcrust
蛋撻（牛油皮）
“Fresh from the oven. One is enough.”
Ingredientsserves 4
Equipment
- Egg-tart tins: twelve fluted aluminium tins about 7 cm across. A 12-hole muffin tray is the fallback; the tart comes out deeper and bakes longer
- A fine sieve; the custard goes through it twice
Method
- Dissolve the half cup of sugar in a cup of hot water (225 ml) and leave it to cool completely. A syrup that is still warm cooks the eggs and gives a grainy custard.
- Rub the cold diced butter into the flour, icing sugar and salt until it looks like breadcrumbs, add one egg and bring it together with as little kneading as you can; wrap and chill thirty minutes. Hong Kong cooks say the first secret of any tart shell is cold: a cold room, cold butter, cold tins. An overworked dough shrinks in the oven.
- Divide the dough into twelve walnut-sized balls and press each into a tin with your thumbs, working from the centre up the fluted sides to an even 3 mm, a little higher than the rim. Chill the lined tins again while you make the custard.
- Beat the three eggs gently, no froth, stir in the cooled syrup and the evaporated milk, and pour the mixture through a fine sieve twice; the second pass is what gives the glass-smooth surface. A frothy, unsieved mix bakes into a pitted top.
- Fill each shell to about eight-tenths. The tins go into the oven cold: shells lined at room temperature bake with a pale, soggy base.
- Bake at 180°C fan for ten to twelve minutes until the pastry edges colour, then drop to 160°C fan for a further ten to twelve minutes until the custard is just set: nudge the tray and the centre should still tremble, with no cracks. If the tops start to dome, open the oven door a crack for the last few minutes. Too hot an oven, or too long, and the custard domes and then splits.
- Cool in the tins five minutes, then lift out. Eat them warm: what the bakery and the 茶餐廳 sell is the 出爐蛋撻, straight from the oven.
Take care
- Contains egg, milk and wheat. The custard is a set egg mixture: bake until the centre is just set (75°C or above in the middle), refrigerate leftovers within two hours and eat within two days. Do not taste the raw custard. Hot sugar syrup burns.
The story
The egg tart reached Hong Kong through Guangzhou's Western restaurants in the 1920s and 30s, an English custard tart and a Portuguese nata meeting in a Cantonese kitchen, which 明周文化 calls a many-sided relationship of pastries. 泰昌 (1954) made the butter shell famous and 檀島 the flaky one, and every Hong Kong person has a side; the last governor's tart was a 泰昌 牛油皮.
Same wall
Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.