I had some leftover pastry shells in the freezer which I have been itching to put to use. Egg tarts. I never realized how easy it was to make these until I tried. All you need is egg, milk, sugar and some patience. This is a “whole egg” egg tart recipe so you don’t have to worry about coming up with creative ways to use your egg whites.

If you’ve ever been to a Chinese bakery, you’ll know that these are the stars of the show. A simplified version of the Portuguese egg tart — these tarts appear in breakfasts, dim sums, potlucks and brighten many faces with their yellow shade.

If you don’t have pastry shells on hand, the filling is great baked in ramekins as well. Make sure to pass some off to friends as soon as they’ve cooled to avoid eating one too many. My highest record is three a day.

Chinese Egg Tarts 全蛋蛋撻

*Makes 6 egg tarts

Ingredients

5 small pastry shells
5 eggs
80 ml milk
165 ml water
80 grams sugar (I used golden sugar)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Heat oven to 390 F. In a small saucepan, add water and sugar over medium heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves and set aside to cool. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs until the yolk and whites are combined. Add the milk, vanilla extract, sugar water and mix well. Filter the liquid through a sieve to remove chunky pieces of raw egg. Discard the chunky bits. Fill each shell up to 80%.

Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350F and bake for another 10 minutes. Turn off heat, prop the oven door open and let the egg tarts sit for 5 minutes or so. Check on the tarts every so often to make sure the egg filling does not get overcooked. The filling should be soft with just the right amount of gooey in the center.