Kitchenventure: Flaky Pastry Egg Tarts

I remember making egg tarts years and years ago (probably in my teens) and it was a disaster. The pastry sucked, and the egg custard smelled eggy and it was quite rubbery. Since then I never attempted it again. About 2 weeks ago I came across a youtube cooking video which teaches how to make this flaky pastry egg tart, and it instantly made me want to try it once again.

The thing with flaky pastry is it's very time consuming and it sort of requires some skills when it comes to wrapping and rolling. I remember making flaky pastry once, again years ago, I made some curry puffs and I don't know how I did it, it was my first time making it and I absolutely had no idea about the basics of flaky pastry, but I managed to get the flaky pastry right that time.

For these egg tarts, I made it 3 times. You read that right, 3 freaking times because I just was not happy with the way the pastry turned out. The custard tasted perfect, and it's so easy to prepare.

Egg Tart Attempt 1

My pastry was too thick and it was raw in the middle even though I cooked it longer than what it's supposed to be. And because I wasn't aware that my pastry would shrink, I filled the custard to almost the brim and consequently, it overflowed when the pastry shrank. It was flaky, but not as flaky as I would have liked them to be. Maybe because I used an all butter recipe because I wasn't bothered to get shortening. On the right, it looks as though the pastry was flaky and cooked through but that's because with this one, I left it in the oven for a really long time just to see how long it'll take to completely cook through and achieve the flakiness I like. Approximately 20 minutes but by then, my custard was rubbery already.

Egg Tart Attempt 2

I decided to use shortening this time and because I was trying to act smart, I used a food processor to incorporate the shortening with the flour. It looked alright at the beginning but when everything came together, it was lumpy as hell. And there was no way I could get rid of the lumps. I blame it on the shortening for being a chilled, solid type, not Crisco. I wish we have Crisco here. And also, for unknown reason my pastry shrank like crazy in the oven. Once again lots of the custard overflowed. But the flakiness from using shortening is unbelievable. So flaky and crispy, just the way I have expected them to be!

Egg Tart Attempt 3

I'm still not quite happy with how much the pastry would shrink when baked but with the 3rd attempt, I'm quite satisfied already. No overflowing disasters, pastry cooked through and with this batch, I managed to yield 2 times more than the first 2 batches.

I still need to improve my pastry rolling skills especially when making flaky pastry like this. Using an all butter recipe is a lot more manageable but you won't get the same flakiness and crispiness as when using shortening. Shortening increases the difficulty because when it's chilled, it's almost rock hard and there's no way I can roll the pastry without it cracking. There might be a 4th attempt... we'll see. I am so determined to fix little things here and there so that I can make this perfect.