As part of Foodbuzz’s Tastmaker’s program, I recently received a package of Pepperidge Farm’s frozen puff pastry. I have been meaning to try to make Chinese egg tarts (Dan Ta) for some time now, but was hesitant about all the messy steps involved with rolling out the shortening (or lard or butter) with flour. This seemed like a perfect experiment – can I use commercial puff pastry to make Chinese egg tarts?
The first thing to do is you have to defrost the frozen pastry. Let it sit out, preferably covered with a plastic wrap, for 30-40 minutes at room temperature.
Next, preheat the oven to 400 degrees as you prepare the custard and the shells.
The Custard
Ingredients
1 cup milk (heated)
2/3 cup sugar
4 eggs (lightly beaten)
optional: yellow food coloring
Lightly beat the 4 eggs until yolks and whites are mixed, trying not to incorporate air into the egg mixture. Set aside. Heat milk and sugar over medium heat in a saucepan until hot but not boiling. Stir until the sugar is mostly dissolved. Remove the saucepan from heat.
Add the egg mixture in a slow stream to the heated milk while stirring. Continue to stir gently as the egg mixture is being added to ensure proper mixing and to prevent clumps of solid egg bits from forming. Once added, strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve and let it cool as you prepare the shells.
Note: you can optionally add yellow food coloring if you want the egg tarts to look like the ones you get at dim sum places. I added a few drops, but this is totally optional. Without the food coloring the egg part is a pale yellow color.
The Shell
Cut out circles with a 3-inch diameter cookie cutter (or just manually cut with a knife, tracing around a bowl).
Press the pastry circle into a normal sized muffin tin, stretching it a bit so that it forms a small cup.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes or so.
Cut a small hole in the middle of the pastry (for the filling!)
Fill with the egg custard mixture.
Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until the middle seems set. That’s it!
Serve!
These are pretty tasty. The crust does not taste exactly like a traditional lard-made Chinese crust, although it is flaky and buttery in a similar way. This crust is a bit puffier (to be expected) and the crust-to-egg ratio is a bit heavy on the crust. I was sort of wishing for more egg mixture – maybe I should try to make them taller?
Over all, the puff pastry shell works OK and is a decent substitute. Definitely a workable way to make these if you are in a hurry. It might be interesting to try this same egg custard mixture in different sorts of pre-made pastry shells to see which works best. 🙂
Enjoy!
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what a fun idea!! 🙂
Free products/ingredients – lucky!
I love these egg tarts. I get them all the time when I go eat dim sum (although I haven’t been able to find a good dim sum place all around Atlanta). I guess I’ll have to start making my own using your recipe.
Happy new year!!
Puff Pastry is great! Wish I had been offered a free sample!
Puff pastry is a great twist on these classic tarts. I bet the flaky, crispy texture is a wonderful counterpoint to the smooth, silky custard. I wish I had a dozen right now! 😉
these look great and sure did puff up really nice. we love working with puff pastry now and have one more recipe up our sleeves 🙂
Looks simple, easy, and delish! Great post!
Have a Happy New Year! 🙂
These look great! I love the hot egg tarts and since Indiana is not know for having a good China Town… I only have them when I get to DC or San Fransico. I can’t wait to try these! Thanks
what a neat idea!!! what’s this taste makers program everyone keeps blogging about….
I’m so glad we met too!!! hopefully we’ll cross yummy paths again this year!
These look so fluffy and delicious!
Have you thought of using frozen pie dough? It seems like that would produce the closest replication.
oh my word, this is exactly what I’ve been craving. And I love that you used the puff pastry for it! Egg tarts are my favorite. Not too sweet, just the right balance of creamy deliciousness!
I made these w/o pre-baking the shells and they turned out fine
These look so good!
As always another winning recipe!
If you cut the top entirely off, you would get more custard in, and then, serve with top as a bonnet.
should try it with layers of filo dough maybe? thatd be a nice flaky crust and you could add as many layers as you want so you can get the right crust to custard mixture.
I am craving for this recipe. It is simple, easy recipe that surely my family would really like it. All I need is to complete the ingredients and follow strictly the procedures. I’ll start doing this recipe after I complied all ingredients and Enjoy baking with this lovely Egg Tarts.
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Kitchen Cooking tips and hints
Oh geez, I will have to try to make these now! I lived in Hong Kong for awhile and saw these everywhere but now I’m going to try it for myself 🙂 Thanks!
Put a layer of dried beans in each puff pastry cup before baking and remove after baking. This should help prevent the crust from puffing.
Thanks for the helpful tip!
Hmm…where did you get the idea to cut a hole in the pastry? Certainly an interesting technique.