Chinese Egg Tarts are a traditional dessert served in dim sum restaurants and often served for Chinese New Year to bring abundance in the coming year.
![egg tarts in a muffin pan with text overlay "easy egg tarts for Chinese New Year"](https://thatrecipe.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Egg-Tarts-Pin-683x1024.jpg)
Egg Tarts evolved in Hong Kong based off of British custard tarts. It has a smooth glossy top.
The Macau version (pasteis de nata) is similar but was influenced by the Portuguese colonizers and has a scorched top, like crème brûlée.
This version is so easy you can make them anytime you want a special individually sized dessert. .
Ingredients and Alternatives for Egg Tarts
The ingredients are pretty basic kitchen ingredients:
- flour
- butter
- evaporated milk
- powdered sugar
- granulated sugar
- eggs
- vanilla extract
Instead of the cupcake wrappers you can put the pastry straight into the cupcake pan To decorate the edges use a fluted pastry cutter or a sandwich cutter sealer to cut, or cut with a biscuit cutter and use a fork pressed into the edges to decorate. Or leave the edges plain.
Recipe
Ingredients
Pastry
- 1 to 1 ½ cups flour
- ½ cup cold butter (cubed)
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons ice cold water
- 1 egg (beaten)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Egg Filling
- ¾ cups water
- ⅓ cups sugar
- 5 eggs
- ½ cup evaporated milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Pastry
- Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
- Place 1 cup flour, butter, and confectioner’s sugar in a mixing bowl.
- Using a pastry cutter, blend butter, flour and sugar into a coarse crumbly mixture.
- Add egg, vanilla extract, and ice cold water into the mixture, mix until it forms a dough. If the dough is too wet and sticks, add more flour a tablespoon at a time. If it is too try, add ice cold water a tablespoon at a time.
- Roll out the dough to about ⅛ inch thick. Use a round cookie cutter, cut out 12 rounds. You can use a fluted cutter or gently press a fork into the edge for decoration. Place in the cupcake wrappers or straight into the cupcake pan.
Egg Filling
- In a sauce pan, heat water and sugar over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Let cool to room temperature.
- In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs lightly. Add evaporated milk and vanilla. Beat until well combined. Strain into the sauce pan with cooled syrup. Mix.
- Strain the egg mixture into each tart shell, taking care not to over fill them.
- Bake the tarts in the oven at 375°F for about 15 - 20 minutes. until the filling rises and the crust is lightly brown.
Marilyn Lesniak
Thank you for hosting! This is what I featured the week of 12-30 to 1-3 on my blog. On Tuesday morning was a Christmas Tree Pizza Pull Apart. Wednesday was Croissant French Toast with Strawberries . And wrapping up the Holidays was Slow Cooker Mushroom Barley Soup. Enjoy!