The Method

Prepare Egg Filling

1. In a large bowl, combine fresh milk, evaporated milk and caster sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves. Mix in eggs and vanilla extract.
2. Sift mixture 3-4 times, preferably with a finer sieve.
3. Set aside in fridge for 3 hours. We tend to do it the night before, leaving overnight, for sugar to fully dissolve and mixture to settle. This prevents voids from forming within the filling.

Prepare Oil Dough

4. Place flour and chilled butter cubes into food processor. Pulse until rough dough forms.
5. Scoop out, compress together into a small rectangular parcel, and wrap it up with cling wrap. Work quickly before butter melts.
6. Place in fridge and let it chill for 30 minutes.

Prepare Water Dough

7. Place flour, salt and egg yolks in food processor and start pulsing. As it pulses, slowly and gradually pour in iced water bit by bit. Let it pulse until dough forms. Be patient, it will form eventually.
8. Compress into a ball and flatten it slightly, dust over a little flour, wrap with cling wrap, and place in fridge. Let it chill for 30 minutes.

Prepare Pastry

9. Take both water and oil dough out from fridge and remove from cling wrap. Dust the work surface with flour. Roll the water dough into a large oval or circle, just large enough to fully enclose oil dough.
10. Place oil dough in the centre of water dough and wrap it up, ensuring no oil dough is exposed.
11. Dust over some flour again on top and below, and wrap with a larger piece of cling wrap. Chill in fridge for 30 minutes.
12. Retrieve dough and roll it into about 1 cm thickness into a rectangular shape. Fold sides roughly towards centre to form 3 layers. Dust with flour again and wrap with same cling wrap, then place it back in the fridge and let it chill for 20-30 minutes.
13. Repeat above step.
14. For third and last round of folding, you need 4 layers. Retrieve dough and roll it to about 1cm thickness into a rectangular shape again. Fold sides into dead centre line, and fold one side to meet the edge of the other, neatly forming 4 layers. Dust with flour again and wrap with same cling wrap, then place it back in the fridge and let it chill for 30 minutes.

15. Finally, retrieve dough form fridge. Roll dough into 5mm thickness. Cut out circles with the right cookie cutter size, and mold each piece into the egg tart molds. Press down the dough towards the sides and bottom. Poke some holes on the case using a fork. Chill tart bases in the fridge for about 20 minutes.
16. Preheat oven to 200°C.

Prepare for baking

17. Place egg tart bases on a baking tray and pour egg filling into each of them to about 80-90% height. Remove any surface bubbles (We use a chopstick for that). Very steadily, without spilling egg filling, carry tray into oven and bake for 15 minutes first, then reduce temperature to 180°C, and bake for another 10 minutes. If you see the egg filling rising into a dome too much, further reduce oven temperature or you may also open the oven door slightly to lower the temperature. Once done, switch off oven setting, keep oven door slightly open (we shove a thick towel to wedge it open), and let them bake in the residual heat for 10 minutes. Tips: For a completely smooth shiny surface, open the oven after about 10 minutes and remove air bubbles again. Be careful, it’s hot, don’t burn yourself! Also, depending on oven type, make sure to use pastry or baking setting, so that it heat comes from the bottom. This is to ensure that the pastry is uniformly cooked and egg filling does not overheat at the same time.
18. Remove tray from oven and let egg tarts cool a bit before removing them out of the molds. They should be served warm.
19. To reheat, just place them back in the oven under 200°C. Bake for 5 minutes and they will be warm, crispy and flaky again!