Binging with Babish: Egg Tarts from Avatar The Last Airbender

[Music] [Applause] I know it was supposed to be his stomach growling but that really made it sound like Aang parted hey what's up guys welcome back to binging with babish where this week we're taking a look at egg custard tarts from Avatar The Last Airbender first up probably the most accurate versions of the show the Hong Kong style egg tarts because try as I might I can't seem to drop this egg for comedic purposes so let's get started on our pastry shell into a food processor goes 225 grams of all-purpose flour 50 grams of powdered sugar and 9 tablespoons of unsalted butter we're just gonna pulse those together a few times until the mixture resembles wet sand as you might be able to tell we're making a sort of shortcrust pastry here but instead of the usual iced water we have one large beaten egg which we're gonna add to the food processor and process until the mixture comes together to form an extremely soft ball of dough a ball which we are going to wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about half an hour or until ready to use during which time we're going to make our custard the Hong Kong variation of which is quite unlike any I've made before first up we've got 150 mil of very hot tap water to which we're gonna add 75 grams of superfine sugar I've also got half a teaspoon of vanilla powder here but you can be a normal human being and use half a teaspoon of vanilla extract tiny whisk until dissolved tiny whisk two large eggs into 85 millimeter milk and then regular-sized whisk everything together in a larger bowl than the one you picked out and we're gonna strain this mixture into a pour friendly container for easier pouring action down the line and then it's time to cut our pastry and line our tart molds in this case a cupcake tin Hong Kong style egg tarts usually use a fluted baking tin but the one in Avatar The Last Airbender appeared to have flat straight sides so on a well floured surface with a well floured rolling and we are rolling the dough out to a thickness of 6 millimetres cutting in two rounds just a bit larger than the diameter of our cupcake tin and beginning to line the tins with our pastry simply press down into the cup and squish it up the sides if you feel like you're over squishing your dough don't be afraid to roll out your rounds just a little bit thinner before lining to 10 and as you can see we want pastry shells that are ever so coquettish peaking at us over the edge of the cupcake 10 then before filling with our custard we're going to skim off any remaining pesky foam the sitting atop the egg mixture and then we're gonna fill our egg tarts anywhere from 3/4 to 7/8 of the way full before placing the whole thing on a rimmed baking sheet to prevent spillage then baking in a preheated foreigner' degree fahrenheit oven for 10 minutes lowering the heat to 350 and begging for another 15 until the pastry is golden brown and the filling is set but still very very jiggly once they are just cool enough to handle go ahead and pop them out the tin and ideally serve them while still nice and warm and as you can see we've got a nice tender but crisp pastry crust almost reminiscent of a sugar cookie and a soft creamy custardy interior now another common preparation for these is with homemade or store-bought puff pastry but I think this is the simplest and most show accurate version and it's a worthy member of the clean custard cup club but now let's go completely off the reservation and use this as an excuse to make mesh staged and not that the very difficult Portuguese version you might have seen on the last season of the great british baking show first we're combining 150 grams of all-purpose flour with one gram of kosher salt tiny whisk until homogenous and add 80 milliliters of water as you might be able to tell one of my new year's resolutions is to use metric more often then go ahead and knead this until a shaggy sticky dough forms coming out let it rest for 20 minutes and what we're not gonna do is wrap it in plastic wrap that's what we're not gonna do I did this for demonstration purposes I didn't screw up instead we're gonna plop the rough dough down on a well floured surface and top it with a bowl this is going to allow our gluten to relax so we can roll it out to about 12 by 12 inches I'm sorry did I say 12 inches I meant thirty point five by thirty point five centimeters then I have here one stick or 113 grams of unsalted very soft butter one third of which I'm going to spread over about two thirds of our lean dough did that make any sense which we are then going to laminate by holding the unbuttered third of the dough over the centered buttered bits and then folding the remaining buttered third over that effectively closing it up like a pamphlet our pamphlets metric I don't even know anyway we are rotating it 90 degrees rolling it back out to a square and repeating the process once more before rolling it out one last time and spreading the remaining third of the butter over about ninety percent of the surface area of our dough with the exception of a one inch I mean two and a half centimeter border which we are going to moisten with wetted fingers and beginning to tightly roll the dough into a log from the opposite end rolling and pressing lightly to seal shut wrapping in plastic wrap and refrigerating for at least two hours preferably overnight while that chills we got to make the Portuguese version of our egg custard this starts with a sugar syrup into a medium saucepan goes one hundred and fifty grams of granulated sugar 75 mil of water one metric stick of cinnamon and half the peel of one lemon that we have thoroughly scrubbed to get rid of any protective wax we're then simply bringing this mixture to a simmer and so all the sugar has dissolved taking it off the heat and allowing it to cool completely for 30 minutes once cooled it's time to work on another very strange egg custard formulation into a large bowl goes 40 grams of all-purpose flour and then I've got one and a half cups or about 350 milliliters of whole milk here about a third of which I'm going to add to the flour regular size whisking thoroughly until thick and creamy and no lumps remain then set that aside because we're headed over to the stovetop where we're pouring the remaining milk into a large saucepan heating over medium low heat until just simmering there we go at which point we're gonna add our flour milk slurry whisking constantly and cooking for one to three minutes until it becomes thick gooey and/or creamy almost like a very thick lumpless pancake batter I shudder to think of the descriptors that Matty Matheson might use anyway at this point we're gonna kill the heat which as you can see I forgot to do add the sugar syrup straining for easier combination along with my half teaspoon of vanilla powder or your half teaspoon of vanilla extract and whisking thoroughly to combine until slightly cooled off at which point we're gonna add six large egg yolks the hotter your mixture is the faster you're gonna have to whisk otherwise you're gonna scramble your eggs but hopefully you should end up with a smooth custard a custard which just for the sake of smoothness we're going to strain once again to catch any errant lumps also keep an eye out for my daytime listening jazz album for the sake of smoothness available in 2025 alright now that we've got our custard made and we're keeping it warm right off-camera we're retrieving our dough from the fridge which should have formed a nice hard log go ahead and angrily shake it out of the plastic wrap onto a lightly floured work surface trim off the uneven edges and then it's time to divide this into twelve equally sized pieces each of which when you look at them from the side should have a tight butter swirl this is going to give the pests edge Donata their characteristic flaky crunchy swirly bottom now all we've got to do is not screw up the many delicate layers of butter we've worked so hard to engineer we're gonna start by placing a dough round into the center of our cupcake tin and start pressing it down from the center out trying to first cover the bottom of the tin with pastry followed by the sides it's gonna take a bit of practice but after maybe your 50th or 100th batch you should make these with the proficiency of a Portuguese petition go ahead and rinse and repeat until the cupcake tin is full and as before we want the pastry to be just peaking above the rim of the cup then we're gonna fill these three-quarters or 75% of the way full with our egg custard mixture then we're placing these guys on a preheated baking sheet that we've had in a 500 degree fahrenheit oven for about 20 minutes oh boy I forgot about temperatures back into a 500 degree Fahrenheit or 260 degrees Celsius oven they go for 12 to 16 minutes or until the custard is puffed lightly browned and the pastry is nothing short of gorgeous hopefully with the characteristic swirl on the bottom I could just tell you that this is amazing and a member of the clean plate club but I'll let my pastry do the talking [Music]

Channel: Babish Culinary Universe

Views: 3,954,757

Keywords: egg custard tart, how to make egg custard tarts, egg custard, tart, tarts, pasteis de nata, pastel de nata, great british baking show, paul hollywood, mary berry, prue leith, avatar, the last airbender, airbender, avatar the last airbender, aang, nickelodeon, egg custard tart recipe, egg tart recipe, tart recipe, binging with babish, babbish, cooking with babish, pear qwerty horse, egg custard recipe, how to make egg custard

Id: F2ENkOF3fMQ

Length: 8min 2sec (482 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 07 2020