Washington Post. Actually, it's the recipe for the crust I found intriguing, it's similar to puff pastry where you create a butter-based dough and an egg dough, roll them out and place the butter dough on top of the egg dough, and then go through a series of folding the doughs over and re-rolling. After a few interations you end up with a multi-layer dough that's extremely flaky.
Ingredients
For the filling:
1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (120 milliliters) hot water
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/4 cup (60 milliliters) evaporated milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the butter dough:
1 stick (4 ounces/113 grams) very cold unsalted butter, cubed
1/4 cup (30 grams) all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
For the egg dough:
3/4 cup (85 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tablespoon water, at room temperature
Pinch of salt
Cooking spray or vegetable oil, for greasing the tins
Instructions
1. Make the filling: In a medium bowl, dissolve the sugar in the hot water, then refrigerate until the syrup is cool to the touch, 30 to 45 minutes. In another medium bowl, whisk the egg with the evaporated milk and vanilla until combined. Whisk in the cooled syrup until combined. Using a fine-mesh strainer, pass the filling through several times, so it is completely smooth. Refrigerate until well chilled, 20 minutes.
2. Make the butter dough: In the bowl of a food processor, combine the butter, flour and salt and pulse until it clumps into a ball. (Alternatively, you can work the butter into the flour by hand until it becomes a ball.) Turn the dough out onto a piece of plastic wrap, shape into a 1-inch (2.5-centimeter) thick rectangle, wrap tightly and refrigerate until cold, at least 1 hour and up to 1 day.
3. Make the egg dough: When the butter dough is sufficiently cold, in a medium bowl, combine the flour, egg, water and salt and mix until not overly sticky to the touch. Dust the counter with additional flour and roll out the dough to about 1/8-inch (about 3 millimeters) thickness. If the dough sticks to the counter, use a thin spatula or bench scraper to release it and add more flour to the surface.
4. Unwrap the butter dough and place it in the middle of the egg dough. Wrap the butter dough in the egg dough — first folding top and bottom and then right and left — as if wrapping a present. Generously flour your work surface and dust your rolling pin and the dough with the flour. Roll out the dough to a large, 1/4-inch-thick rectangle; you may need to rotate the dough a quarter-turn every now and then and dust with a little more flour as you go. Fold the dough into thirds, like a letter, and then fold the shorter side in half, creating a compact rectangle. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour. Repeat rolling out, folding and chilling of the dough two more times. Try to keep the dough in a neat rectangle as you roll and re-roll it.
5. Once the dough has chilled for the last hour, position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees. On a generously floured counter, roll out the dough to about 1/16-inch (2-millimeter) thickness. Using a 3 1/4-inch round cookie cutter, cut out circles for the crust. You can re-roll the dough scraps twice, as needed. Lightly grease each tin with cooking spray or oil and place a circle of dough into each tin. Press the dough into the bottom and up the sides of the tin and, using a fork, prick the bottom and sides of the crusts. Chill the crusts for at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours.
6. Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and place the tins on top. Fill each tin to about two-thirds of the way with the filling, about 2 tablespoons. Bake the tarts for 15 minutes, then decrease the oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 7 to 10 minutes, or until the crust is light golden and a toothpick inserted in the center of a tart can stand up on its own without falling over, or the center is set, but still slightly jiggly.
7. Transfer the egg tart tins to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving, about 20 minutes. Remove the cooled tarts from the tins and serve at room temperature.