Chinese · Dessert
Dan Tat (Hong Kong Egg Tart)
- Advanced
- 50 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with a silken, spoon-slow texture, richness that coats and comforts, on a slow, honest burn.
Ingredients
- 150 g plain flour
- 85 g unsalted butter, soft
- 37 g icing sugar
- 30 g beaten egg, for the pastry
- 1 g fine salt
- 110 g caster sugar
- 225 ml hot water
- 3 eggs (150 g), for the custard
- 60 ml evaporated milk
- 3 ml vanilla extract
Equipment
Sheet pan
The skills inside
Tempering a custardStraining & passing through a sieveSkimming: foam, fat and a clear brothChilling to firm: the fridge as binderFolding: keeping the air in
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Beat the butter and icing sugar until pale but not aerated, beat in the egg, then fold in the flour and salt just until the dough gathers. Wrap and chill 30 minutes. 30 min
- Press 25 g of dough into each of 12 fluted tart tins of 7 cm, working from the base outwards with your thumb so the wall is an even 3 mm and stands a hair proud of the rim. Chill the shells while you make the filling.
- Dissolve the caster sugar in the hot water and let it cool to lukewarm, then whisk in the eggs, evaporated milk and vanilla without raising foam. Strain twice through a fine sieve and skim the surface.
- Fill each shell to 3 mm below the rim and bake at 200C (400F) for 15 minutes, then drop to 180C (350F) for 10 minutes to 12 minutes. 15 min
- Pull the tray when a nudge sends one slow wave across the centre and the surface is still flat and glossy; carryover heat finishes the set as they cool.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Folding: keeping the air in 34 recipes
- The air was actually built first and it shows: whatever was creamed or whipped has changed colour and grown in volume, pale and light rather than dense.
- The two mixtures were brought closer before being combined: a little of the light one worked into the heavy one first, so the rest is not beaten flat trying to move it.
- Folded and not stirred: a broad implement down through the middle, across the base, up and over, with the bowl turned between strokes.
- Stopped the moment the streaks disappear. It is still visibly aerated and holds its shape briefly when the spoon lifts away.
- Into the tin and into the oven straight away: a batter left standing on the bench gives back the air it was built for.
Where it goes wrong It was stirred until it looked perfectly smooth. Every stroke past the point where the streaks vanish knocks out air that cannot be put back, so the bake comes out dense and short of the tin, and often wet through the middle where there was no structure to hold it.
Chilling to firm: the fridge as binder 48 recipes
- It went cold before it was handled any further, and it went in spread flat and covered rather than as a warm mass that insulates its own centre.
- It is cold through rather than cold at the edge: tested at the middle it is as firm as it is at the rim.
- It holds its shape unsupported; it can be cut, portioned, rolled or lifted without slumping, tearing, or sticking to the hands.
- The fat in it has gone solid: it feels firm and waxy to the fingers rather than greasy and yielding.
- It survives the step it was chilled for, going into heat or a coating or a mould still holding its form rather than collapsing the moment it is touched.
Where it goes wrong It was given twenty minutes instead of the hours it needed, so it is firm at the rim and soft at the core: it slumps out of shape as it is portioned, and everything made from it spreads or breaks apart in the pan.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Sauternes
- Also Right
- Demi-sec Champagne
- From the Taps
- Belgian tripel
- Zero-Proof
- Jasmine tea
The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.
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