Summer Hands On Lookbook - Lava Cheese Tarts 焗流心芝士撻

Another recipe that I tried last summer. These Lava Cheese Tarts have been a big hit recently in Hong Kong, customers needs to queue up for 3 hours to get these freshly baked tarts. (Yes.. 3 whole hours @@). So I decided to have a go at making them myself and see if it is worth the 3 hours waiting to try the authentic one.

You will need:
(8-10 tarts)

Tart:
1 egg
200g cake flour
100g unsalted butter
100g sugar

Cheese Tart filling:
150g Mozarella cheese
150g cream cheese
150ml milk
1 tbsp golden syrup

Method:
1. First, prepare the tart by mixing the unsalted butter and sugar together with an electric whisk. Then add in the egg, and lastly the cake flour. Keep mixing until a dough is formed. You may switch to using a spatula or hands whichever is more convenient.2. Wrap your dough with cling film and place in the fridge for at least 30mins.
3. After that, take the dough out and roll it flat to a thickness of about 4mm. then using a cookie cutter or anything round that has a diameter similar to the tart molds that you will be using, cut out circles and line them in your tart mold. Make sure you apply oil/butter to your tart molds before use. Then gently press the sides so that it fills the surfaces of the tart mold.
4. Poke the dough in the tart mold with a fork to allow the dough "breathe", this is to prevent bubbles forming when it bakes in the oven.
5. To prepare the cheese filling, heat the milk until it just starts to boil gently, then add in the rest of the filling ingredients and mix until everything melts.
6. Preheat the oven to 190C. Place all your tarts on a baking tray and let it bake for 8mins. It should turn slightly golden brown.
7. Take the tarts out from the oven. Pour the filling into the tart molds till 3/4 full. Adjust the oven temperature to 150C and bake the tarts for another 5mins. The next step is optional but you may brush a layer of egg yolk on top of the cheese filling and bake it for another minute, just to give your tarts some colour.

Tip: the tarts are best served when freshly out of the oven, ideally, consume within 10mins after it's out of the oven, you will get the lava oozing effect if you cut open the tarts as soon as you take it out of the oven. Or else it will solidify as it cools down.