Traditional Egg Custard Tart with Nutmeg

What can be yummier than a traditional egg custard tart with nutmeg? Remember as kids we used to all have them as little, individual little tarts. Packed in our lunch boxes. Usually next to the soggy cheese sandwich! Haha ????. For me, the egg custard was always left until last. The best of the best. Nothing could beat it. Or could there be something…

Well, as a child those little egg custard tarts were the best. But, what if, as an adult, we could make a bigger one!? A whole, family size tart? Where we have more egg custard to pastry? “Can there be such a heavenly dessert?”, “Is it possible?” I hear you all cry!

Well my fellow dessert disciples, beholden, the full-size traditional egg custard tart with nutmeg. Yum!

I know what you’re all thinking. You’re thinking old Stevie has been using his photoshop skills again and just enlarging a little egg custard tart. This cannot be real…

Well, my friends, I’m telling you it’s real alright. And, what’s more, you can have one too! Yes, this eggcellent, eggciting and eggxotic (sorry, I couldn’t help myself ????) egg custard tart is well within your grasp!

C’mon, I’ll show you how…

1. Gather all of the ingredients together.

You should know me by now. I always pull all of the ingredients together first. It’s far less stressful all round if you do this.

For this egg custard tart recipe, you will basically need to make the pastry base and then the egg custard filling. I, therefore, set aside two separate groups of ingredients before I started to cook.

2. Make the pastry

The simple way of making the pastry is to put the flour, butter, icing sugar, and egg yolk in a blender and, using the pulse function, mix all the ingredients together until they start to bind a form a pastry.

However, if you don’t have a blender then you’ll have to make the pastry using the traditional method.

For this, put the flour and icing sugar in a bowl and mix together. Then add the butter and simple squash these 3 ingredients together over and over again. Then, keep rubbing the mixture lightly through your hands until you have a breadcrumb-like texture.

Next, add the egg.

Finally, mix this all together and knead until a pastry ball is formed. This should only take a minute or so.

3. Form the egg custard tart base

You now need to form the base and blind bake it. Blind baking is a method used in baking when the filling of the pie will take a shorter time to bake than the pastry used for the pie. It’s commonly used for desserts with pastry bases, and savory dished like quiche.

The first thing to do is roll the pastry out so that it will fit a 22 cm cake tin. The best type of tin to use for an egg custard tart is a fluted cake tin with a removable base. Fill the tin and push the pastry into the tin flutes and break off any excess pastry so you end with a neat base. Then dock the pastry with a fork buy pricking holes in the base.

Before baking line the base with tin foil and add either baking beads or any dried pulses just to weigh the foil down and stop the pastry from moving.

Now bake the base by placing in a pre-heated oven at 200C / 180C Fan for 15 minutes. After this remove the foil and weights and bake for a further 5-10 minutes until the pastry has gone golden.

It’s now time to make the filling but before you start, turn the oven down to 140C / 120C Fan.

4. Make the egg custard filling

For the filling, add the cream, milk, and lemon zest to a small saucepan. Next, add a small drop of vanilla essence and a pinch of nutmeg. Finally, place this on a low heat and bring to the boil and then set aside.

Whilst the milk and cream mixture is heating up take the egg yolks and whisk in the sugar until the mixture goes a pale orange color.

Now, whilst continually whisking, add the cream and milk mixture slowly to the egg and sugar mixture. Remember to keep whisking.

Finally, pass this custard through a fine sieve to remove any lumps and stand aside for 5 minutes or so. Then spoon off any froth from the top of the egg custard so you are left with liquid only.

5. Finish off the traditional egg custard tart with nutmeg

Once the base is cooked and the oven has got down to 140C / 120C Fan carefully pour the egg custard into the base and sprinkle some nutmeg over the top. Bake the egg custard tart for 40 minutes or until the egg custard has set and has just the slightest wobble in the center when you jiggle it.

Now, remove from the oven and set aside for 30 minutes. Finally, remove from the tin and let cool properly in the fridge.

There you have it. A wonderful family size egg custard tart. Yum Yum!

OK, my fine food friends! That’s it for now. I do hope you enjoyed the recipe and give it a go yourselves. I’d love to hear how you get on. Leave me a comment or question if you like.

As always, may thanks for reading and until next time…Steve.