Earlier last year, a friend of mine was feeling pretty down, so I promised to make some 蛋撻 for him to cheer him up. Another friend of mine has been like a super-cool older brother to me since I first got accepted into Davis. Through him, I got everything from dinner to tours of the campus to chemistry tutoring to biochem/anatomy notes to mock interviews for med school. He is, in short, freaking awesome, so it is no small wonder that I’m always trying to thank him in one way or another–for instance, being his winggirl (lawl, just kidding; he already had a girlfriend at the time). In reality, I’d make him food since he’d refuse anything else. You would not believe how hard I had to fight to convince him to let me treat him to lunch. (Yep, I couldn’t even win for dinner.)
蛋撻 = probably one of my most favorite dim sums. (“Dim sums” sounds so weird. It’s probably not a word.) When we buy em’ in bulk in Oakland, 16 are usually gone in two days and none of them will have made it to my lips because my brother generally eats them all. But since he was off in China when we got the last batch, I had no competition for them. :O
Several years ago, Suzanna and I made an almost butter-less version of these, not because the recipe didn’t call for it, but because we just didn’t have any. (This was before she got a car, and we didn’t feel like taking the bus/I didn’t feel like biking through the pouring rain just to get butter.) They turned out semi-okay, but definitely could have been better.
蛋撻 (Egg Tarts)
Ingredients:
(Crust)
~1.5 cups flour
~1/4 cup sugar
-1 egg, beaten
~1/3-1/2 cups butter
-1-2 tbsp cold water
(Filling)
-3 eggs
~1/3-1/2 cups hot water
~1/3-1/2 cups sugar
~1/3-1/2 cups milk
The spots are because of my lack of a sieve. :[
Instructions:
1) Take hot water and stir it into the sugar so it’ll be ready by the time you need it.
2) Blend flour and sugar together, then add the butter (you can melt it in the microwave to make life easier) and crack in the egg. Stick the dough into the refrigerator.
3) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Beat the eggs well and add in the sugar-water mixture and milk. Beat well. Pour everything through a sieve to get all the gunky egg parts out. But if you don’t have one, I guess you can’t do that part. sigh.
4) Keep the custard mixture in measuring cup for easy pouring. (I also neglected to do this. :[ This would have made life much easier)
5) Rather painstakingly assemble the crust. Fill the egg mixture into the baking tray.
6) Bake for 20-25-ish minutes.
These didn’t come out all that pretty (I’m sure the lack of butter didn’t help), but I’ll likely make them again someday!
I’d love to make Portuguese Egg Tarts at some point too!
