Buttery Shortcrust Egg Tarts Recipe

This Hong Kong-style butter shortcrust egg tarts recipe is an ode to, believe it or not, aeroplane food.

Hong Kong / Chinese egg tarts can be found with two different kinds of pastry: 酥皮蛋挞 flaky pastry egg tarts (sometimes called puff pastry egg tarts), and 奶油皮蛋挞 shortcrust egg tarts (also known as cookie crust or butter crust egg tarts).

I grew up eating the flaky pastry kind. The pastry's made by rolling up a water dough with an oil dough to create perfectly defined, delicate layers. This kind of dough's very similar to the ones I use for my Teochew mooncakes and Chinese flower pastries.

So because I grew up eating this style of egg tart, I was always biased towards them.

Until I ate one on a Cathay Pacific flight last year.

Cathay Pacific serves warm buttery shortcrust egg tarts as a snack, and I was blown away by how good they were – not just for plane food, but for egg tarts full stop. Smooth, silky, not-soo-sweet custard and  a melt-in-the-mouth biscuit pastry with a hint of salt. Perfection.

I couldn't stop thinking about it. But I can't fork out hundreds for a Cathay Pacific flight (or any flight to Hong Kong in general) just for an egg tart. So I decided to try and recreate it,

Luckily for me, I already know the secret to making melt-in-the-mouth, delicate pastry: and that's to mix the wheat flour with a little cornflour to lower the tough gluten content, but not so much that the structure falls apart.

Add a little full fat milk powder to the dough, and you have an even richer result.

You can also watch me make these on my YouTube channel, Tashcakes:

Ready? Let's go.

(Makes 10 egg tarts.)

Ingredients Shortcrust Dough:

140g plain flour
3 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp full fat milk powder
1/2 tsp salt
125g cold unsalted butter, cubed

Ingredients for Egg Custard:

90ml warm water
35g caster sugar
3 eggs
60ml evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Extra:

A little extra butter (softened) for greasing the moulds

Method:

1. To make the shortcrust dough, add all the dough into a bowl and rub the butter in until it begins to resemble breadcrumbs: continue to knead until it forms a dough.

2. Divide into 10 portions and roll into balls.

3. Grease 10 egg tart moulds with the extra butter, then use clean fingers to press a dough ball into each mould, building up the walls a little higher than the moulds. Pop in the fridge to chill while you make the custard.

4. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Make the custard by dissolving the sugar in the warm water in a bowl, then whisking in the eggs, followed by the evaporated milk.

5. Pour the custard through a sieve into a pouring jug to filter out any bits of unbeaten egg fibres, and divide between your chilled pastry cases.

6. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the custard's just set but still jiggles a little when the tray is lightly shaken.

7. Leave to cool before unmoulding and eating.

Enjoy, and have fun.