Flaky Crust Egg Tarts

This recipe is taken from Kak Rima's blog bisousatoi (seriously folk, do check out her blog!) who took the recipe from Wendy's Table for 2. As the already suggests, these tarts are definitely flaky and crumbly; I guarantee you. This pastry is rather difficult to be removed from the regular tart moulds because of its flakiness. Wendy used disposable foil tart cases for her tarts. I suggest you do the same. It was quite a struggle for me to remove the tarts (I use muffin pans), but it was worth the effort for I like my pastry crumbly and flaky! :) The filling is smooth and creamy, just like what an egg tart should be. Try this and you wont be disappointed.

Egg Tart Recipe  
(from bisousatoi ; originally from Table for 2.)

Pastry
250g plain flour

2 tbsp castor sugar

1 egg yolk

150g butter,

Filling

150g castor sugar

150ml hot water

250ml milk(1 small pack of milk) * I used low fat milk

1/8 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

3 large eggs

1 egg white (From the same egg where the yolk was used in the crust)

Method

1. Cream the butter with the egg yolk and sugar. 
2. Add in flour. Mix well. (If the dough is sticky for you , well maybe your yolks are larger than mine, add in extra flour by the teaspoon until it no longer feels sticky, but got a slight flour feel to it, but not too much though, as it will toughen the crust. the borderline of stickiness and dry feel is very thin.. so, add extra flour with caution)
3. Roll out pastry in between two sheets of plastic into thickness of about 4mm. Stamp out 9–10cm circles of pastry with a pastry cutter.
4. Lightly press the pastry circles into foil tart cases(I’m lazy to wash up the tart tins).
5. Refrigerate the lined foil cases for 2 hours (I left them overnight)
6. Melt the sugar in hot water, add milk, salt, vanilla essence. Beat all the eggs lightly and mix in all together.
7. Sieve egg mixture and pour into the cold tart crust.
8. Bake at 180C (fan)/200C for 25 minutes.