Egg tarts

Someone should buy lottery...I've started baking again!! Despise the country being hot, today was rather cool hence the itch haha

Behold, my mini egg tarts!

Not bad for first try ;)

As well as I didn't have a chance to take any in between photos with my dirty hands but the base of the tart is the same as the ones I did for pineapple tarts but shortbread type.

Taste: Just like I want it, not too sweet but I think I should hit the high temp to darken the crust next time.

The tricky part of making egg tarts actually is the egg custard in the cup because it actually takes longer time to cook before the crust becomes hard. So it has to be baked at low temperature.

Anyway, here is my easy-to-bake recipe in case you wanna whip something quick. But if you want to take it a step further, I recommend Christine's wonderful Hong Kong egg tart recipe

Makes 9 mini egg tarts

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Pineapple Tarts

Hokai, this was my first time making them and I so can't be bothered with the shape etc etc but I do bother with the filling!!

Soooo....

I literally made TarTs...in cupcake trays so that it holds more filling!!

Ok so I didn't have enough mini muffin trays...I made normal cookies instead =P

I tried to make a ball shape but the batter was a bit crumbly (it does boil down to the butter used) and the crust was abit harder than normal (better off for large base tarts) so the next time I make it I'm gona see if semi soft butter and icing sugar will help soften the base abit =)

What inspired this crazy spontaneous move? Leftover batter from my previous post! I realise that I won't have many eating tarts so thought I'd make cookies and distribute it around instead (Well, I gave everything to my sister haha). She loved the pineapple bit since it doesn't stick in between the teeth (I didn't cook it too long).

Before....and after say half an hour at medium flame

Anyway, it's Chinese New Year, so it's not worth the festival without attempting to try and make cny cookies! And to those of you out there, wishing you a great prosperous and wonderful new year to come. May the water dragon brings us joy in what we do! Gong Xi Fa Chai!

Courtesy of Nonyafood & Recipes and Rasa Malaysia's posts)

Makes about 18 tarts

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Fruit Tart round 2!

Heh, I've done this before in my previous post but I didn't write down the details of the recipe. And since I was planning to make 2 tarts, I got carried away in making my version of pineapple tarts with the extra cookie batter leftover.

This time I did poke holes on the base of the tart to prevent it from expanding but I didn't roll the first one deep enough. Ah well, you can't complain when you have a thick base anyway?

As for the custard bit, I relied on one recipe to make it...but in fact there are other ways to make it but it does depend on what desert one plans to make. If the custard is merely for pouring, I suggest  adding double cream to the recipe taken from these 2 posts: traditional english custard or Making egg custard without curdling

Mine had a 2 step and only used normal milk for the first step. Second step is just mixing the custard with whip cream to get the texture I want. But I made it twice coz the first one curdled >.<. After searching on reasons why mine didn't thicken (no double cream that's why) I decided to make it again...

It so nice to have more time since it's the cny break to myself....as well as the whole kitchen too hehe.

(Courtesy of Organic Tuscany's post)

Makes 4 x 2" fruit tarts and tart has a shelf life of 4 days refrigerated

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Shortbread Tarts with Cream Filling

Being me, I can't sit put and just bake only cakes...so I've started to explore into pastry tarts. Apparently there are a few kinds of pastry bases. But to simplify things, there are 5 main types (more info here). They vary from the hard crusts to the super nice and flaky ones and they all have different methods of making too.

And so I started off with the simplest form: Shortcrust pastry. Process didn't take that long but I forgot one vital step...poking the base of the pastry to allow air to escape if not the base will expand.

Pretty obvious eh? Thank goodness D was supportive to eat it when I topped it with custard and fruits..

And then I got ambitious further by making a shortbread tart which was indeed challenging especially when it comes to shaping this soft dough. There was alot of taking out of the oven and poking the base a few times just to make sure it doesn't rise too much. But it was worth all the efforts :). Tasted absolute yuuuuuummmm and of course it was a Hen's do that was behind the motivation. So I dedicated this to Min.

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