Tray full of homemade egg tarts (assortment of flavors) with oolong tea
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! (中秋節快樂!) to those who celebrate this holiday. As everyone knows you’re supposed to have a piece of the traditional pastry, the mooncake (like the snowskin version I made two weeks ago or the baked version last year). While there are traditions for each ethnicity and even within different cities within China, this fall harvest holiday is like any other Chinese holiday that I know of – there’s bound to be a feast. My family is planning to make roast pork belly (sieu yuk; 烧肉) like the one I’ve made back in Chinese New Year and many other dishes to bring in symbolic luck and happiness to the family.
Different flavors: Ginger and pineapple
In addition to the plethora dishes I’m planning to cook and bake later on today, I baked dan tats (蛋撻) with a cup of very fine oolong tea (烏龍茶) this morning. Not necessarily traditional for this holiday but it is a tradition in my home (and very popular and notably good in Hong Kong). Nothing quite like a freshly baked dan tat for breakfast; it’s like a fresh croissant from a pâtisserie that you cannot let it sit over an hour or two before the crust will get soggy. When this pastry is fresh, the crust is warm, wispy and flaky meets the smooth, silky, not too sweet custard.
I’ve gotten a little adventurous baking beyond the standard egg tart and matcha green tea version and made ginger (姜蛋撻) and pineapple (菠蘿蛋撻) flavors.
For the basic recipe of the dan tat, please look at my post from last year. If you want to create these “newer” flavors, I added about 2-3 tablespoons of freshly grated ginger (it depends how pronounced ginger flavor you like) to the mixture but you need to reduce the water amount by 10 grams because of the ginger’s water content. The pineapple version is basically adding finely diced dried pineapple on the bottom of the prepared crusts and top it with the same custard mixture.
If you have any questions about the recipe, please comment below and I’ll try to clarify.
For more photos of my egg tarts, please scroll through my slideshow below:
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