Easy Portuguese Egg Tarts

I have been craving for Portuguese egg tarts for a while but couldn't bring myself to pay AUD$1.80 for an egg tart. Too expensive! Back home an extremely yummy egg tart would probably cost ~RM$1.00. Hence i decided to make some myself :)

After going through a couple of recipes I landed on a very simple/quick recipe that my friend Wendy uses. To make things really easy I used ready made puff pastry, stuck them onto cupcake papers and baked them in a cupcake tray. I must say they don't look as pretty as the ones sold in the shops (especially the pastry >.< ), but gosh they are as delicious! Another beauty of making them yourself is you can control the amount of sugar going into those tarts. The whole preparation took <15 minutes so it is perfect if you have limited time and would like to have a quick snack!

Easy Portuguese Egg Tarts (courtesy of Wendy) 

makes 18 egg tarts with regular cupcake trays. 220 degrees Celcius for 25 minutes.

Ingredients:

200g Whipping Cream

300g Milk

80g Sugar

3 Eggs

3 Egg yolks

1/4 tsp Vanilla Essence

2 large squares of ready-made puff pastry

some sugar for sprinkling

Methods:

1. Place the whipping cream, milk and sugar in a pot and cook on medium-low heat until the sugar dissolves. Do not allow the mixture to boil (maintain ~70degree Celsius).

2. Once the sugar has dissolved, remove from heat and whisk in the beaten eggs, yolk and vanilla essence

3. Leave mixture to cool slightly

4. Prepare the pastry shells - mold the pastry onto the cupcake cases and place them in cupcake trays. Poke a few holes at the bottom of each pastry shell.

5. Pour in the mixture into the pastry shells, filling until 1~1.5cm from the top. Sprinkle some sugar on top of each egg tart. Bake in preheated oven at 220 degree Celsius for 25 minutes. The custard will puff up quite a bit in the oven so don't be surprised! The top should have a nice 'burnt' glaze when the egg tarts are ready. 

6. Remove from oven + cupcake trays. Leave them to cool slightly before eating!

Before entering the oven

Don't worry. The custard will puff up quite a fair bit during the baking.

As soon as it comes out the custard will start to sink.

Tadaa~! End product. 

Hope you will like this recipe! 

I shall try making normal egg tarts some other time!

 

Chocolate Mud Cupcakes with Orange Buttercream and Candied Orange

I promised a friend some yummy cupcakes and chocolate ones are her favourite!!! I have made several versions of chocolate cupcakes in the past and I found the cupcakes from this recipe to be incredibly rich and moist, yet fluffy (just how I like them!). In comparison to other recipes, this one actually demanded very good quality chocolate and many more ingredients, but I think it paid off well. :)

It took me quite a while to decide what frosting/decorations to go with it and I finally settled at the idea of a 'Jaffa' cupcake i.e. chocolate + orange combo; something I haven't done before. I was very worried the frosting & candied orange will overpower the chocolate but I felt the candied orange actually pulled the flavours together beautifully. Texturally it was great as there were 3 different layers. Big success for me! Try it out and let me know what you think *heehee*.

 

Chocolate Mud Cupcakes recipe (Adapted from Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook)

makes 24 regular cupcakes. bake at 160 degrees celcius for 22-25 minutes.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp Instant coffee granules (Add more if you want a stronger coffee taste)

3/4C Hot water

250g Butter

300g Good quality dark cooking chocolate, chopped (i used Callebaut's 60% Dark choc)

4 Eggs

1/3C Vegetable Oil

1/2C Buttermilk

2C Plain flour

1/4tsp Salt

1&1/2tsp Baking Powder

1/2tsp Bicarbonate Soda

2C Castor Sugar

1/2C Cocoa

method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius. Prepare cupcake trays with cupcake paper.

2. Dissolve coffee in hot water. Put butter, chocolate & dissolved coffee into a metal bowl and place over a large saucepan of simmering water. Stir until chocolate has melted. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. [Chocolate Mixture]

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, vegetable oil and buttermilk until combined [Egg Mixture]

4. In another bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking powder, bicarbonate soda, castor sugar & cocoa and mix well until combined. [Flour Mixture]

5. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the egg mixture. Mix well until combined.

6. Add in the cooled chocolate mixture and mix in carefully until well combined.

7. Spoon mixture into cupcake cases, filling to just over half full!!!

8. Bake for 22-25 minutes until fine skewer comes out clean.

9. Remove cupcakes from trays and cool completely before frosting.

Orange Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

3 tbsp Butter

1/2tsp Vanilla extract

3C Sifted Icing sugar

Juice of half a big orange (I used navel oranges)

Zest of half an orange

Method:

1. Cream butter and vanilla extract 

2. Add in 1C of sifted icing sugar

3. Add in 2tbsp of orange juice

Note: keep alternating between steps 2. and 3. until you achieve a desired consistency, mixing well in between. Add more icing sugar if it is too runny, or add more orange juice if it is too sweet/thick.

4. Mix in the zest when the mixture is ready.

Candied Orange Slices

Ingredients:

Remaining half of the large orange, cut into 1/4 inch thick longitudinal slices

1C Sugar 

3C Water

Methods:

1. Put 1.5C water and 1/2C sugar in a wide-based saucepan and dissolve the sugar on medium heat

2. As the water starts to simmer, lower the orange slices into the pan and place them flat on the pan

3. Simmer on medium-high heat for 10 minutes, turning them once or twice

4. Lower the heat down to medium-low heat for 30 minutes, turning them once or twice

5. Meanwhile, prepare another sugar mixture by dissolving 1/2C sugar in 1.5C water on medium heat. Add this sugar mixture to the orange slices if the syrup starts to run out.

6. When it is ready, the orange slices should still be intact but translucent, and has a nice coating of thick syrup

7. Turn off the fire and leave there for 10 minutes

8. Transfer onto baking paper carefully and leave until cooled completely before use

Assembling:

1. Pipe the orange frosting onto the cupcake (i used a big round tip)

2. Top the frosting with the candied oranges anyway you like!!!

Have fun :)