The Wandering Eater

Last week or so while my family was still in this weird, almost obsessed period of making almost all Chinese sweets and baked goods from scratch, I went along with it and baked dan tats (蛋撻) or egg custard tarts. You may call me crazy but my argument is, there’s nothing like a fresh baked fill in the blank and if I know how to make it, why the hell should I buy it? Unless of course, I’m desperate to eat whatever I’m aping for. I know things like the egg custard tarts and Chinese-style baked pork buns would make your head scratch and wonder why bake it since it’s relatively cheap to buy? To sum up in a word, quality.

Before I keep ranting, here’s how I made them…

I didn’t realize that until my dad translated that for me when I found a recipe via eGullet which took me to this Chinese website called Leisure Cat. Funny thing is, my dad inscribed a bunch of dim sum recipes waay back about three decades ago and actually saved his little notebook. He compared notes and found it to be pretty much legit in terms of ratios. So, I used the crusts portion and went my own way when it came to the egg yolk custard filling.

Mis en place for the “oil crust” and “water crust”

There’s two crusts to make, yes. TWO. The “oil crust” is self-explanatory. It’s made with a pile of butter, lard and a smidge of flour (if you have to compare weights between the fats and the flour). The “water crust” is the low fat part of the dough. Both are essential to give you the crisp, flaky crust.
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