Portuguese Egg Tarts: Test Run.

Portuguese Egg Tarts are some of my favorite dessert/snacks. I'd get them in the Chinese bakeries out here almost whenever I see them. However, the best ones I've had where in Macau. There, the custard was rich and creamy, but the crust was the standout. It was puff pastry, and it flaked as you bit into it.

I picked this dessert because I wanted to learn how to make it at home, and to see if I could get it to be more like the ones I've had in Macau.

Looking on the web, most of the recipes were similar. They consisted of the same ingredients for the most part, with a few being different ratios, and others adding in other flavor components like lemon skin and cinnamon sticks. I choose one to use as a baseline.

We followed the recipe exactly to get an idea of a baseline recipe, so that later during our club meal, we could try to adjust to get it even better.

First off, after making the custard it seemed like it wasn't enough. It said the recipe would produce 20 tarts. However, after reading the recipe again, it was for mini tarts. So we rolled the puff pastry like the recipe directed, then cut the roll into pieces, which we put into the mini-muffin pan. The method we used here then, was to press in the center, then push up the pastry up the sides of the walls of each muffin. The difficulty in this was that the pastry tended to break on the top, and it didn't look great. On our next try, we'll try another method that I researched as well as this one. We'll flatten out the puff pastry, roll it out thin, then cut it into circles, then lay it into the pan. Also, we decided that using the mini-muffin pan created a higher pastry to custard ratio. So we will use normal-sized muffin pans instead to get them to the same size as the ones you get in a restaurant.

One thing to note while stirring and cooking the custard, is that you have to know your kitchen. When a recipe says "medium," what is medium heat on your range? So as I cooked and stirred I watched the custard carefully so we wouldn't have any curdling of the egg.

After getting everything ready and into the oven, we let it bake for 12 minutes. Then we broiled the tarts for 2-3 minutes. As I opened up the oven door, I notice a minor burning smell. I immediately pulled out the pan, and it was a little burnt on top. This is another area where you have to watch over the tarts carefully. Next time, I would put the pan more towards the middle of the oven. We put it 4" from the top like the recipe said, but we found that it was too close and wasn't really cooking the tarts evenly.

One option that we might try on our next run, is to use a torch instead of the broiler. That way, we can control the "charring" on the top without overcooking the rest of the tart.

Another challenge with this dish is its presentation. So that is an area we'd want to work on, especially in the pastry. Using the press down method, we tended to get uneven thicknesses and broken areas. Also, when we tasted the tarts, the pastry wasn't as flaky as I would have liked.


Into the pan.


Ready for the oven.


A little charred.

The custard wasn't quite as rich as I remembered them usually tasting. And the lemon flavor came out too strong, which may have taken away from the creaminess. I did more research by looking at other recipes, and one possible change would be to use more egg yolks (one recipe called for double the eggs than this recipe). Also, we could get more complex flavors by infusing other herbs/spices. One idea which we may try is cardamom and lime, instead of lemon and cinnamon.