I’ve been binge-watching The Great British Baking Show at night (okay… I really only make it through one episode per night before kid-induced sleepiness kicks in), but I consider it binge-watching. I love the show so much because A) everybody is so damn nice on it and B) the people are truly amazing bakers.
I’ve never considered myself much of a baker honestly, and watching this show just confirms how much I have to learn if I ever want to really be great at it. If you haven’t watched it, the show is in three parts and the most stressful part, in my opinion, is the second stage: The Technical Challenge!
In this stage the bakers are given a tricky recipe with very bare instructions and expected to make it. One I watched recently featured Egg Custard Tarts as the technical challenge. They seemed completely up my alley (sweet pastry filled with slightly sweet custard) so I thought I would give them a shot without the stress of a timer and with a slightly more filled out recipe!
I was able to dig up Paul Hollywood’s (one of the judges) original Egg Custard Tart recipe because, well, the Internet, and I tried to follow it just as closely as I possibly could.
Egg Custard Tarts
Equipment
Ingredients
Sweet pastry:
- 165 g (5¾ oz.) all-purpose flour, plus some
- 25 g (1 oz.) ground almonds
- 120 g (4¼ oz.) chilled unsalted butter, cubed
- 55 g (2 oz. )sugar
- 1 free-range egg
Custard filling:
- 2 ½ cups whole milk
- 7 free-range egg yolks
- 90 g (3¼ oz.) sugar
- freshly ground nutmeg
Instructions
- For pastry, stir the flour and ground almonds together in a large bowl, then add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar last.
- Crack in the egg and mix it with your fingers until the mixture forms a soft dough.
- On a lightly floured surface, form a disc with the dough. Wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and leave to chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
- Roll out the sweet pastry on a lightly floured work surface.
- Using an 11cm/4½in fluted cutter, cut out twelve discs and line the muffin tray moulds with the pastry circle. The pastry should be a tiny bit above the edges of the muffin tins. You may have to re-roll the dough a time or two to get all twelve cut out.
- For custard filling, warm the milk in a pot until steaming, but not simmering at all, and beat the egg yolks and sugar together in a separate bowl until pale and creamy.
- Pour the milk onto the egg yolk mixture and whisk well, creating little bubbles.
- Transfer the custard into a pourable cup. Feel each custard tart almost to the top of the pastry.
- Sprinkle each with fresh ground nutmeg.
- Bake the tarts in the oven for about 25 minutes – you may need to turn the temperature down to 180C/350F/Gas 4 for the final 10 minutes. Rotate the muffin tin halfway through to ensure even baking.
- You are looking for a very slight dome on the custard, indicating that it is baked. If the custard domes too much this indicates that you have over-cooked the custard, it will have boiled, and will sink back down leaving a big dip. If this does happen you can help rescue it by removing the tarts from the oven immediately and placing the tin in cold water on a cold surface.
- Cool in the tin for 30 minutes before trying to remove the tarts. The base of the tarts should be perfectly baked through, without having over-cooked the custard filling.
Notes
Nutrition
Did you make this recipe?
Egg Custard Tarts
This is one of those baking recipes that really shows your attention to detail I think (mine sucks, frankly). There aren’t many ingredients but each step requires some finesse.
I think you could use almond flour for the recipe, but it did specifically call for ground almonds so in my small food processor some almonds went!
I mixed it up with some flour and everything was going just swell!
Then I mixed in cold butter which was just like making any pie crust. No biggie! Oddly, the recipe said to mix in the sugar after you do the butter. Typically, I would’ve thought to mix it in before, but I stuck with it.
The sweet pastry dough ended up being nice and soft after I mixed in the egg. If definitely something you want to work with your hands so it stays soft. You wouldn’t want to do this in a stand mixer, in my opinion. Plus, you want to work it as little as possible.
That gets shaped into a disc, wrapped, and chilled for about 30 minutes.
Onto the custard! This part I felt like I had a good handle on. Egg yolks and sugar whisked together.
Then you pour in warm whole milk and whisk until it forms a froth. I got a little bit worried about how thin the mixture is, but have no fear. It’ll set up beautifully in the tarts.
Okay, when it came to making the actual tarts is when I hit some glitches. For starters, I didn’t have the right size cutter so I had to freeform the rounds. I just used a ruler to mark off 4 1/2 inches in diameter and cut it out. It worked, but was far from perfect.
I shaped these into my muffin tins. I think the next time I would raise them up a tiny bit more as I basically just made them level with the tins.
Then pour in the custard! A steady hand helps when transferring to the oven or you can pour the custard into the tart shells after you place the muffin tin in the oven.
Sprinkle with nutmeg and bake these guys for 25 minutes at 400 degrees F. If they start to look too toasty around the edges, turn the heat down to 350 for the last 10 minutes (mine did).
The custards should dome a bit and have just a little wiggle to them.
Failure and Success
The thing I failed to do was rotate my muffin tin halfway through baking. I think this led to slightly uneven baking. SIGH.
Six of my tarts were perfect. Well, perfect enough for me.
Three of my tarts were slightly underbaked and stuck a bit to the muffin tin. I was able to get them out though in one piece and they were edible.
Three of my tarts completely fell apart. UGHHH.
I think they could’ve used an extra minute in the oven maybe or just a rotation of the pan.
The six that were good though had a nice bake on them! The custard didn’t seem overcooked to me and the tart shell was nice and crispy all around.
BOOM!
- Need an easier dessert option? Try these Cherry Trifles or these No-Bake Strawberry Dessert Bars!!
This was really fun and I feel like I could nail them if I made them a second time. My family scarfed all of them down in two days. NO JOKE.
Baking is fun, but baking competitively would be incredibly hard.
Carolynne
These sound delicious. I always love egg tarts ahile having dim sum in China town! Just a quick question – did you grease your baking tin beforehand? Thanks.
Nick
I generally don’t like to grease pans for pastry Carolynne just because it can make the pastry a bit soggy… if it’s well baked and cooled it should release okay. That said, it’s not a terrible idea if you have an old baking dish. I had one of my twelve stick a bit I think because of some old stuff on the pan! OOPS! Most of mine released okay though with no greasing.
Carolynne
Great, thank you very much!
Julia
No soggy bottoms there!
I too, have been bitten by the GBBO baking bug! Time to attempt tarts… and this recipe looks attemptable! Thank you!
Karen @SmartStepstoAustralia.com
Wow they look incredible and not as complicated as I was expecting.
Karen
Yum! I definitely want to try these out this weekend. I love the Great British Bakeoff and I actually just watched the Masterclass episode on these last night. Have you looked into the GBBO MasterClass episode yet? They’re fantastic. Your tarts look fantastic too!
Diane Kolleck
I want to bake them because of the PBS
show As Time Goes By. He has to have
a supply of tarts at all time. You really
want them after watching that show!
Autumn
Hi Diane! That’s the reason I started looking up this recipe. Did you try to make them? Did they turn out?
Anne Russell
You said what I was going to say. Yep, As Time Goes By piqued my interest. Shall make a batch of these for our family Easter brunch.
Edwina
I love Lionel and his penchant for egg custard tarts. Great show.
Panda
Me too! I have been looking for them in bakeries and stores ever since I watched As Time Goes By. I guess I will have to learn to bake them.
Leila
OMG….Me too….LOL !
Tina
I’ve just started “binge watching” the way you have, one or two episodes as a time. I was watching it with my youngest and we had to stop, because she was “so hungry.” We’re going to make this recipe as a special request :)
Michele
LOL- Been binge watching as I recouperate from an illness back to back to back and just finished watching this very episode.
And I needed to get up and stretch, so did, came back and found this when looking for possibly Paul Hollywood’s recipe – or someone’s anyway – to make these for the first time.
I enjoyed your post very much, thank you for sharing!
Nick
Thanks Michele! Hope you are feeling better!
June Hutton
Ooh these are good! I actually made them in our caravan so used silicone tart cases. The pastry is definitely tricky to work with – I actually popped it in the freezer for 30 minutes instead of the fridge, then worked quickly. I rolled it between two lightly floured sheets of baking paper, which helped. I also just laid each cut piece gently over the cases and virtually let gravity sink it. Would definitely make these again, thank you.
Helen Godlonton
Hi June….. did your silicone pans release the tart easily? Did you spray oil first
Delia M Bottoms
Believe it or not, my husband and I discovered GBBO last year. When we found the entire series on Netflix, we started watching from the beginning. There is also another series with just Paul and Mary, and they show how to properly do all the recipes that the amateur bakers were challenged with doing. Very interesting to watch one show of GBBO first, and then watch the related episode of “Masterclass: Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood”. When I saw Paul make his custard tarts, I just had to try them. Never made them before, and I love to bake.
I made those tarts today. It was quite a learning experience. For one thing, I found out that my oven runs hot, at least for these delicate custard tarts. I will bake them at 375 next time and rotate the pan midway. Secondly, I found out that I should not wait beyond 30 minutes cooling time before taking them out of the muffin tins. They will stick if allowed to cool completely. One thing I noted that one of the amateur bakers did when she did her tarts: She crisscrossed two strips of parchment paper in each of the twelve cups before putting in the dough so as to create 4 ‘handles’ to grab and pull out each tart. A slight pain in the neck to do, but it is well worth the effort. When I pulled one tart out after 30 minutes, it popped out cleanly and in one piece. I did do two without the parchment paper to see if I could take them out with a small indented spatula like Paul did when he made his, but the two tarts did not come out as well as the others. He obviously has a lot of practice…he stated in the Masterclass series that he did custard tarts by the dozens since he was 14 years old.
Thanks for sharing your baking experience. By the way, even though my tarts don’t look as pretty as Paul’s, they are still yummy!
Delia Bottoms
Nick
Parchment paper handles are an awesome idea! I’ve seen those before too, but am too lazy. Haha! Thanks for the comment Delia! Happy Baking!
Holly
Ruby used parchment handles.
Mackenzie
Can I bake this filling into a large tart? If so how extra time?
Nick
I think probably Mackenzie! I think it would end up similar to this pie I made:
https://www.crunchtimekitchen.com/old-fashioned-lemon-buttermilk-pie/
I baked that one for about 40 minutes, but you kind of just have to check it every few minutes to see if it’s set. Good luck!
Calisse
I have recently become obsessed with the show as well! I am going to attempt the custard tarts tonight. Quick question- how do you convert your measurements? I have found so many different versions of ” ml to cups/tsp/tbsp but they all seem to have slightly different measurements. Did you just get a scale and weigh everything?
Nick
Hey Calisse, you can approximate, but if you want to get exact you just need to grab a kitchen scale and start weighing stuff. Good luck!
Heidi
Thank you for your posting! I thought I was the only one who binge watches this show.. seriously think I’m losing it. Love the show1
(making these as I type) :-)
Rose Tong
Hi, It would be very nice if someone can convert the recipe to US Measures… I would love to try this recipe.
Nick
Hey Rose, if you google “Unit Converter” it will let you convert any unit to any other unit. Hope that helps!
Wendy hobson
Is the program still running.on what channel.
Holly
Netflix. I think some PBS stations too. I found other episodes on YouTube but they were not chronological and some were from when Paul went to a different channel without Mary/Sue/Mel.
Holly
What size muffin tins work? Standard or “jumbo”?
Nick
I just used standard ones! :)
Terya
Did you use convection or conventional oven?
Sadie
Hi, not sure if any has asked this. Does anyone know what can be used as a substitute for the ground almonds?
Nick
I think walnuts or pecans might work although I haven’t tried it!
Carrie
:) it is the Great British Baking Show that got me searching a custard pie. Looking forward to trying yours.
Cheers!!
Chana
Lol I also was looking for the recipe cuz of the show!!
Looks delish!
Edony Elder
I have been watching GBBS for a long time and do love the recipes they do. I am still wondering why the US doesn’t use the metric system. The money is metric and it is the ONLY country in the world that isn’t metric. I am English and we changed many years ago and I went to Canada and they changed too. When will you folks get a move on and change to metric. It is SO much easier to use than the weird measurements you use now.
Barbara Youders
I watched GBBS so time ago but it was As Time Goes By that set me hunting for a recipe. I looking forward to lovely custard tarts.
P.S. I too think that we Yanks are idiots for not using metric. So much more logical. My baking equipment includes a scale that uses both as do my measuring cups. I like to make recipes from many countries and will be make these custard tarts soon
Pat
The GBBS is also on regular tv stations twice a year, sorry I don’t remember what channel. One is around Christmas.
Gerry
I made some using this recipe – excellent, I do find it hard to believe you could not find anything circular to use as a cutter though, every home or kitchen has a mug – jar – container – round thing of some sort that can cut out circles of pastry.
Billy
This recipe was amazing, it reminded me of a bakery shop in London I use to go to get these tarts from. I will definitely be making these again.
Ronald Stewart
If you leave out the ground almonds, should you fully replace it with flour? When I made them, I fully replaced the almonds, using 200g of plain flour. After adding the egg, I still had a bowl of bread crumbs — not bound at all. Any idea why?
Nick
Hey Ronald, I’ve never tried that substitution. Almond flour and all-purpose flour have very different saturations. My guess would be you would need to add more liquid to the flour version but I’m not sure on amount exactly… I’d add it a tablespoon at a time until the crust holds together… hope that helps!
Jeremy Nylund
I made these tarts yesterday, and they are quite delicious. Not too sweet, and a nice delicate texture. I must say though, this dough is quite the bugger! I started off trying to put the nicely rolled out discs into the tins, but they crumbled to pieces every time. I ended up just dropping balls of dough into the tin and pressing them into place. It worked out ok… the downside was that it was not possible to have the crust coming up a bit higher than the tin as instructed, so I ended up with lots of unused custard.
Xavier
Your instructions and measurements are incorrect and suck. Had to nearly double every ingredient except the eggs and milk for it to work properly and to top it off you didn’t even really give instructions.
Wendy England
I must have whisked the egg and milk mixture too much as I had an excessive amount leftover after filling the tarts, it was quite frothy. I made a Crustless tart in a pie dish with the extra.
Rose Tong
Has anyone tried using premade puff pastry crust with the egg filling?
Sharon Denomme
I had custard tarts as a child from a British bakery and the crust was a little sweeter and more of a tan color. I always ordered them along with Belgian cookies, pork pies with hot water crust and so much more. I made these a they were great.
Jill L Reser
I followed the link to the “original Paul Hollywood Egg Custard Tart and noticed a difference in the amount of milk used. Your recipe says to use 2 1/2 cups whole milk but the original says to use 700 ml which when I do the conversion is almost a full 3 cups (2.95 cups). I am not sure which one to use now.
Nick
I would start with the lesser amount and add a bit more by the tablespoon if it appears dry and cracking. Good luck!
Amy
I made these but they taste very eggy. I am not sure what they are supposed to taste like – they just looked good! They seem to look okay (yellowish on top and pale in the middle) but I think they must have curdled. How do I prevent curdling? Cook at a lower over temperature?
Ashley
I baked these last night. I am not a custard or pie expert by any means, but do bake quite often. I think mine needed more time in the oven, because the pastry was a lighter color (but I took them out when I did because I was hoping not to over bake the custard). The tarts completely stuck to the mold even after complete cooling. I’m not sure what the issue was there. I also found the custard itself to be a bit bland. If I do this again, I would 1) add salt to the pastry and bake longer, 2) add more sugar to the custard, and 3) add some kind of aromatic to the custard like vanilla extract, orange zest, etc. Still, I appreciate your translation of Paul’s measurements from UK to US!