Egg Tarts

Ingredients: Pate Sucree: 125 gm. Butter - chilled 60 gm. icing sugar 1/2 egg white 1 egg yolk 200 gm. plain flour 1/2 tsp. vanilla essence Egg Custard: 280 gm. fresh milk 160 gm. sugar 3 nos. eggs 1 tsp. rum 1/2 tsp. vanilla essence Method: (1) For pate sucree: beat butter and icing sugar till well mixed. (2) Add in white and yolk and mix. (3) Add in vanilla essence and then the flour and mix into a dough. Rest for >10 min (may refrigerate). (4) Press dough into small tart moulds. To make the tarts of even thickness, roll them between 2 plastic sheets, then cut out with a cutter and place into the tart mould. Rolling will help you to roll the thickness to your preference. (5) Bake the tart shell till half-cooked.

(6) For egg custard, heat sugar and milk together. Once sugar dissolves, off heat. Let it cool. (7) Whisk eggs and pour into the milk mixture. Do not whisk till frothy. (8) Add in rum and vanilla essence. (9) Sift the egg custard and pour into tart moulds and bake at 175C till egg custard sets. (~170C, 15 min) Note: Half baked should be around 10 mins at 175C. I didn't put the timing cos everybody's oven is different. Judge yourself and see that it's like puff up slightly and turned white. After pouring in the custard, bake at a lower shelf to make sure that the pastry will be cooked at 175C. Bake for about 10 mins and watch over it. If you see the custard is about to puff up into a ball, take it out from the oven immediately. Once it puffs up, the egg tart will wrinkle when it's cooled. What you can do is to shake the tray of egg tarts and if the custard wobbles, then it a sign that it's not cook and if it doesn't wobble, then it's set and you can take it out from the oven.

** Use the Phoon Huat rum compound (bottled form) or liquid rum. May also be omitted.