蛋撻, version 2

After feeling a little underwhelmed by my sponge cake efforts (and also feeling incredibly guilty with all the lovely dinners the head chef in the restaurant had been cooking for us), I decided to have another go at making that HK caff favourite, 蛋撻 (dan tat). The last time I made these babies, it was for my graduation at Ferrandi last year. At the time, my puff pastry turned out pretty good but I was let down by not having the right shaped moulds and as a result, they were a bit of a disaster.......anyone who has ever eaten 蛋撻 could tell you that not having enough filling is pretty much a disaster!

This time, the filling and the moulds were the least of my worries......it was the pastry which was giving me headaches! Instead of the perfect layers for butter and pastry that I was hoping for, my initial pastry at "turn" stage looked more like a Jackson Pollock attempt at puff pastry with butter and dough mixing into each other, as a result of my butter "ravioli" cracking followed by dough oozing out. A complete disaster, I thought at the time and also thinking that chef Didier would be not be happy either if he saw this mess!! I decided to carry on with my turns, trying to think positively that everything will turn out OK in the end.......luckily, for me it did but not resting my pastry enough meant shrinkage (aagh!) plus I didn't roll my pastry out thin enough either. All of this meant that even though my 蛋撻  tasted good, they looked pretty poor and again, I wasn't happy enough to share these with other folk. However, after a few comforting words from Ma Chan ("if they can pass my assessment, they are OK.....you know how fussy I am!!"), I decided to bring them to the restaurant and share them with the people working there. As expected, they were greatly appreciated (what sane Chinese person, especially from HK would not appreciate a good 蛋撻??) so that was a nice feeling.......hopefully, I can learn from these mistakes and make it 3rd time lucky and make perfect 蛋撻 next time!! :)