Egg tarts.

This is going to be a post that doesn't have a very happy ending.  I am currently in the process of experimenting with the making of egg tarts.  They are a favourite of Tim's and a favourite of his mother's, and I thought it would be a special treat if I made them for her when she visits.  The first batch I made turned out well, but we didn't have small enough tart tins (I used the bigger ones used for meat pies), so they were the largest egg tarts ever, just way too much sweetness.

This time I had decided to do a few things differently.  First, I used my silicone cupcake liners and I baked the crust first for ten minutes because last time the crusts were undercooked.  I knew right away that this wasn't going to be a good solution because I only filled the bottoms of the cupcake liners and they poofed up when I baked them, so there was very little room for the filling.  Nevertheless, I gave it a shot.  When they came out of the oven, the crusts were very hard, but the filling was excellent.  This is a recipe I'm definitely going to have to try again and hopefully perfect before Tim's mum comes to visit next month!

On the bright side, because I couldn't use very much of the filling, I had a tonne of it leftover and it is pretty much just custard.  So I put it in some custard dishes I have and popped them in the oven at 350 degrees for half an hour.  They turned out perfect.  Here were the ingredients:

• 1 and 1/2 cups of water
• 2/3 cup of sugar
• 9 very small eggs
• 3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp sweetened condensed milk 
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla

I brought the sugar and water to a boil then removed them from the heat once the sugar had dissolved.  I let the mixture cool till close to room temperature.  I beat the eggs then poured them through a fine mesh strainer directly into the water and whisked to combine.  Then I added the condensed milk and the vanilla and whisked again until everything was combined.  I poured them through the fine mesh strainer one more time.

There is definitely a reason why this filling goes in egg tarts, it definitely tastes like eggs!  The custard tastes good, but egg-y.  At least it is a decent enough use of the extra filling.  If I could do it over again, I might only put it in for 25 minutes, because the custards were pretty well cooked.  I think the cream used in most custards usually keeps the custard from achieving this consistency when fully cooked, but since this is an Asian dish, the use of different methods means everything turns out a little different than what I'm used to.  In any event, I'm eating one of the finished custards as I'm typing this and it's not bad at all!