I had my first bite of Portuguese egg tart in Lisbon. I have never been a fan of egg tart prior to that trip. And had only tried the egg tart served at dim sum restaurants.
Piglet was on a mission to find a popular egg tart shop in Lisbon. And I was game for it. We walked for about 30 minutes from our air bnb and had 1 egg tart each.
Surprisingly, it tasted amazing. The crunchy layered crust and the egg part that melts in the mouth. It was warm and freshly baked.
Portuguese egg tart was on my to-bake list after the completion of my kitchen renovation…
The recipe I followed from Chef John uses cups are measurement so I converted it into grams. I also reduced the amount of butter and sugar. Cinnamon and lemon were omitted too. Chef John has a youtube video to gives a good illustration on the dough making process.
Portuguese Egg Tart Recipe
Recipe from foodwishes Chef John
Ingredients
a)Dough
125g all purpose flour
¼ tsp salt
83ml cold water
90g butter
b) Syrup
120g white sugar
78ml water
c) ‘White sauce’
42g all-purpose flour
¼ tsp salt
375ml milk
d) Custard
6 egg yolks
Method
a)Make Dough
Thaw butter for 1 hour at room temperature. My kitchen room temperature was 31C.
Mix water, salt and flour to form dough and knead it for 10 minutes. Rest it in a bowl covered with a damp cloth for 20 minutes. Use flour to dust the surface and roll it into a square.
Chef John’s video here will give a clearer picture. Basically you are trying to add layers of butter in between the dough to form a layered oily crust. Use flour to dust it throughout to avoid sticking to the countertop.
1st Spread: Roll and flatten the dough into a square. Spread a layer 2/3 of it with butter and fold it into a 1/3 size of a rectangle.
2nd Spread: Then roll and flatten it into a rectangle and layer 2/3 of it with butter. Fold it into 1/3 size of a rectangle.
3rd Spread: Flatten it into a thin rectangle and spread a layer of butter. Roll it up into a log.
Dust the dough log with flour and wrap it with a cling film. Refrigerate it overnight.
b) Make syrup
Heat up sugar and water until it boils. Put aside to cool.
c) Make ‘white sauce’
Heat up flour, salt and milk. Stir and cook until thick and smooth. Put aside to cool.
d) Custard mixture
Mix ‘white sauce’, syrup and egg yolk. Sieve mixture.
e) Egg Tarts
Preheat oven to 230C convection. Use a brush to oil/butter the cupcake tray. Take dough log from the fridge and divide it into 10. Press each dough into the cupcake tray mould. Then pour custard mixture into the cupcake tray.
Bake in oven for 15 minutes 230C convection or until surface is browned.
How was it?
It taste the best when it is slightly warm out of the oven. We refrigerated the remaining egg tart and the crust was slightly soggy and soft but after putting it in the oven 180C 10 minutes, it was nice and crunchy again.
I will be reducing the butter quantity in the future as per Piglet’s suggestion. It was difficult to handle when making the dough and it was ‘swimming’ & blistering in butter when I took it out of the oven.
Update 05/10/2020
I made another batch consisting of 22 egg tarts so I doubled the recipe.
Changes I have made:
- I used more resting time during the dough lamination process.Rest dough (autolyse) for 1 hour. After 1st and 2nd lamination, chill dough for 1 hour in fridge so it is easier to handle.
- Sieve the white sauce mixture before heating it up so it is not so clumpy.
- Used 70g of butter (140g after doubling it)
- It is quite sweet so I might try reducing sugar to 100g (200g after doubling it) next round.