British Chinese Custard Tart
Following the mass of chocolate mousse I made for a previous recipe, I had 12 spare egg yolks sitting in the fridge. Rather than use these for scrambled eggs or something simple (mainly because I was in a cooking mood) I decided to make custard tart, a traditional British dessert which is also very popular in China and Hong Kong.
Ingredients
321 Pastry:
300g flour
200g butter/marge
100g water
Filling:
400ml milk
50ml cream
12 egg-yolks
80g caster sugar
Notes: (1) Whilst you can use lard to make pastry instead of butter or marge, this is more suited to savoury dishes; (2) Add a few tablespoons of sugar to the pastry if you’d prefer a sweeter tart, more if using salted butter; (3) For the pastry, I tend to find that half the water is sufficient; (4) Use more cream if available (300ml milk to 150-200ml cream); (5) I used a huge number of eggs because they were going spare, 3 eggs + 3 egg-yolks should be sufficient.
Instructions
Mix the flour and butter together in a bowl until there is no spare flour and you’re left with small yellow crumbs of pastry. Add the water sparingly, only as much as is needed to combine the mixture into a ball. Knead the pastry thoroughly until it has a shine and is springy to the touch.
Line a pie dish with the pastry, bake in the oven for 15 minutes at 190°C whilst you prepare the custard.
Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a large mixing bowl.
Heat the milk and cream in a saucepan until it begins to bubble. Add to the eggs/sugar and whisk to combine.
Take the pie crust out of the oven and pour the custard into it. Reduce the oven temperature to 160°C and bake until set (about 40 minutes).
