Making a Childhood Favorite: Egg Tarts
Or is it Egg Pie?
I distinctly remember a younger me looking through the glass counter of a local bakery. There it is! A portion of a pie, with brown top and beautiful crust. I would tug my mom's dress and ask her to buy this goodie for me.
Though sometimes my mom would give in and buy me a piece, most often I was left to just lust over it from the other side of the glass. I think it must be because it is more pricey than the other breads and pastries that were sold there. Lol.
Anyway, I have been wanting to make something else, but right now, I have the ingredients (and the mood!) to make an egg pie, so be it!
Okay, it was supposed to be an egg pie-- a Filipino Egg Pie, ie, egg custard on a pie crust. However, I remember that though I have the ingredients, I do not have a pie pan! Bruuhhh! I thought of cooking it on my rectangular baking dish, but ended up making them on my muffin sheet.
Making the Pie Crust
I looked around the interweb for Filipino egg pie recipes and found quite a few there, not varying too much.
The ingredients are - - all purpose flour, salt, butter, ice cold water, and sugar. You will basically just want to lump these ingredients into a big ball.
Tip:
❎ DO NOT OVERWORK THE DOUGH
❎ DO NOT ADD TOO MUCH WATER
You do not need a soft dough, and that is why you need to work with cold ingredients. Chill your diced butter and even the rest of the dry ingredients.
The Custard
Most recipes would call for evaporated milk, but fresh milk works just as fine.
This is very similar to the caramel custard (Leche flan) that we make, and while I struggle to make smooth caramel custard when using steaming as a medium to cook, this one turned out really smooth!
Let's Do This!
Egg Tarts Recipe
Ingredients:
Pie Crust
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter (cubed and chilled)
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup ice water
Egg Custard
- 1 1/4 cup evaporated milk (or fresh milk)
- 4 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup sugar
Procedure:
Mix all dry ingredients - all purpose flour, salt, and sugar then chill for at least 30 minutes.
Using a pastry mixer (or fork, in my case), mix the butter and flour mixture together under you get a course sand-like texture.
Slowly drizzle ice water , mix well until just combined.
Gather the dough and press into a ball.
Wrap the ball in a plastic wrap and chill for at least two hours.
Knead the ball until you flatten it to at least 1/4 each thick. You can now lay it on your pie pan, or cut into 12 small circles to fit the muffin mold. Remember to grease your mold!
Refrigerate the molded crust and begin working on the custard.
Scald the milk. You can pop it in the microwave for 2 minutes, or heat on the stove top.
Mix in the 3 eggs and 1 egg yolk.
Add the sugar, then vanilla and mix thoroughly.
Strain the mixture.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gently stir into the custard mixture. This will give the tart the nice brown top.
Carefully put the custard mixture into each mold.
Bake for 30 minutes in a preheated oven at 170 degrees Celcius.
 |  |
|---|---|
 |  |
There you have it! Super yummy egg custard tarts! The fam loved it, could not even wait for it to cool down. The recipe yielded 12 muffin sized tarts.
 |  |
|---|
There you have it! It's a very nice mid-day snacks or even dessert. Much more, it brought some nostalgic childhood memories. Yey and yay for that.
How about you? What's your favorite childhood food?
I've only recently become a fan of eggs! I make omelets and scrambled eggs all the time now, but I am always curious now of other ways to make and eat egg. It's so versatile! And of course in baked goods..but this looks tasty and childhood favorites are usually the best. Thank you for sharing, I'll see if I can make some egg tarts this week. :)
yeahhh eggs are so versatile. And guess what, I also had a share of love/hate relationship with eggs. When I was small, I loved to eat them. Come high school, I stopped eating them and just ate them again perhaps 10 years later.