A Taste of Lord Stow's Bakery

When I saw the ground beef (beef mince as they call it here) in the refrigerator, I promised RD I'd make lasagna. Yesterday morning, he reminded me of my promise.

"Make the lasagna, Mom. You promised."

But I wanted to try out the Japanese Cheesecake recipe I had on page 82 of my orange Microsoft notebook (this is an actual physical notebook with a ring binder and lines on the pages). And by the time I got the cheesecake in the oven, it was almost noon. The cheesecake was supposed to bake in a water bath for 1 hour 10 minutes so I told RD that if we waited until the cheesecake to finish, it would be too late for us to start off baking the lasagna for lunch.

I made him a deal, "OK, tomorrow, I promise, we'll make the lasagna and then we'll try the Portuguese Egg Tarts recipe I got from the internet since the oven is already on."

We have good memories of Portuguese Egg Tarts from Lord Stow's Bakery. Father would usually get some for us from the store after having lunch at nearby Zensho's along Tomas Morato. Of course the streets of HongKong are littered with stores selling egg tarts.

So there I was this morning with my baking commitments all laid out for me.

I got the lasagna in the oven and out of the way, then MyGirl and I proceeded to make the egg tarts.

By the time the lasagna finished, we had finished making the custard but we hadn't rolled out the pastry.

We ate our lunch in between rolling out the pastry then finished up by putting them in the muffin pans, filling them with the custard then baking them.

While all this was happening, we managed to catch Sunshine and family on Skype. It was actually sleeping time for young Ronald in California but his mum and dad were busy peeling peaches from their garden so they could can them for future use. So lucky Ronald got a free pass to stay awake.

RD played Beethoven's Sonata No. 8 Third Movement [Pathetique] (which he learned by himself) for them, then Ronald gave us a mini-concert and showed off his keyboard skills to us (also self-taught).

Then as a bonus treat, we also got to see the premiere showing of Old MacRonald's puppet show, complete with stage, curtains and animals. Sunshine had picked up this set second hand and they hadn't tried it out.

Just to illustrate how long we were able to chat, the tarts were out of the oven as Sunshine and Ronald set up the stage.

Ronald was quite serious about the whole puppet show thing. He announced, "The show is about to start in one minute, so eat quietly."

After the (very) quick show, we all said our good byes and good nights. It was nice to see them and I was very pleased to hear Ronald tell all his stories.

We were still snacking on our egg tarts when we caught up with Father and Mother on skype after chatting with Sunshine. (That's because we'd used up all our eggs and made a double recipe today.)

(Those are MyGirl's pretty hands putting the pastry in the muffin tins.

"Don't take the picture yet, Mom. It's not yet done," she said,

but I couldn't resist.)

(All done and ready to go.)

(Fresh out of the oven.)

(This is GI's stash. His share of the big egg tarts

and his last piece of the Japanese cheesecake from yesterday.

"Look, Mom, a happy face.")

I always thought that the egg tarts were best warm but as MyGirl first discovered, followed soon after by RD, myself and MacGyver, these ones were really good cold. What about GI? Well, he didn't seem interested in the baked goodies at all. However, after dinner, he gobbled up his share of the mini-tarts then worked his way through his stash. He didn't get to taste the warm version at all.

The recipe is a keeper, but next time I think I won't use mini-muffin pans and I won't double the recipe so that the oven temperature won't be compromised (and possibly cut down on our calorie intake).

Bill Granger's Portuguese Custard Tarts Recipe

(Adapted from Bill Granger's Everyday Cookbook)

Makes 12

Ingredients

3 egg yolks (we used 2 egg yolks and 1 egg)

115 g (4 oz or 1/2 cup) caster (superfine) sugar

2 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)

230 ml (7 3/4 fl oz ) cream

170 ml (5 1/2 fl oz or 2/3 cup) milk

2 tsp natural vanilla extract

1 sheet ready-rolled puff pastry

Put the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour in a saucepan and whisk together. Gradually whisk in the cream and milk until smooth. Place the pan over medium heat and cook, stirring, until the mixture thickens and comes to the boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Transfer the custard to a bowl, cover the surface with plastic wrap to prevent a skim forming and leave to cool.

Preheat the oven to 190C (375F / Gas 5). Lightly grease a 12-hole 80 ml (2 1/2 fl oz or 1/3 cup) muffin tin. Cut the pastry sheet in half, put one half on top of the other and set aside for 5 minutes. Roll up the pastry tightly from the short end and cut the pastry log into twelve 1 cm (1/2 inch) rounds. Lay each pastry round on a lightly floured surface and use a rolling pin to roll out until each is 10 cm (4 inches) in diameter.

Press the pastry rounds into the muffin tin. Spoon the cooled custard into the pastry cases and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the pastry and custard are golden. Leave the tarts in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.