I was lucky enough to go back to Hong Kong for a week last week.
Sadly, for a funeral - however the silver lining being able to see
family and friends who mean the world to me. An emotional visit to say
the least, however I'm so glad I went. Hong Kong to me is sometimes so
strange - a homeland, but never technically a home I've permanently
lived in and there are elements of great nostalgia, but always new
things to discover and admire. Home is wherever your family is, and mine
happens to be split between London, Leeds and Hong Kong...not the most
convenient, but it makes family time when we all see each other all the
more special.
The smells, hustle and noises
from central Hong Kong are still astounding, and I can't wait to go back
for 2 weeks in December. One of the senses which always gets me is
passing chains upon chains of bakeries within the MTR transport
stations. You wouldn't dream of picking up a cake for a dinner party
from the Underground stations in London, but in Hong Kong no one would
bat an eyelid, they're all that good (and clean!). Cakes and tarts
always have a special place in my heart, and in the midst of GBBO frenzy
and fever, I decided I hadn't done a sweet in a while. A haze of
jetlag, I got to baking - however I state my disclaimer now, that the
pastry I had made was from an old cook book, and did not make for an
easy and thin casing...(and unassumingly large quantities of it were
made) so we can probably skip that part of the recipe and would advise
anyone to use a normal sweet shortcrust pastry dough. BBC's recipe is an
easy win here. I'm pretty sure Mr.Hollywood would not be impressed with
my pastry skills this time round. Substitute about 25g of the flour in
the recipe for some sieved milk powder for a little more of a milky
finish to the pastry if you can.
The milk
tart seems to hide away in the darkest corner of most Hong Kong
bakeries. It's like the little sister of the custard tart...a little
less known, a little less ambitious but a lot easier to make (mind my
pastry...). The filling is a flan like texture, with a silky white
finish which slips down so easily you may forget you're tucking into
your third consecutive tart without knowing it. The contrast with the
buttery and crumbling pastry is just heaven - and all delicately
finished with a glimmer of ginger flavours for an unexpected zing.
