Portuguese Egg Tart [pix updated]

I am not going to share about my egg tart baking tips this time but instead, I would like to jot down my first ever hilarious moment in my baking journey :P

In order to make sure that the pastry (outer skin of the egg tart) to be well cooked, some did advised us to pre-baked the skin for 10-15 minutes, then only add in the egg liquid in the middle and into the oven once again. I follow just that, prepare the skin nicely into the greased mould (I use the aluminium cupcake foil mould which is a BAD IDEA) and it took me quite an effort to make sure the skin stay put, pop it into the oven and baked with so much anticipation waiting for the next step to be done i.e. adding the egg liquid! As I was checking on those egg tarts, to my horror I saw that the pastry doesn’t wish to stay on to the side of the mould and instead, starts ‘shrinking’ in the oven, immediately my heart was screaming “Noooo !!!! Ohhhh Nooooooo !!!” but I can’t do a thing but to watch my nicely shaped pastry keep shrinking from a cup shape into a smaller circle shape pastry lying flat in the middle of the mould when it’s out from the oven!!! Oh ..... GREAT!!!! *Feels like bagging my head on the wall*

What to do, since it’s already shrunken so much but I told myself to be POSITIVE, at least the pastry still fit nicely at the bottom of the mould so I guess I will just have to settle with the tarts with pastry only at the bottom but not the side then (some sort like a cheesecake where the crunchy base only at the bottom) So feeling a little motivated again, I start working with the egg liquid and praying that my tart will still look ok without the pastry on the
side and start pouring the egg liquid one by one carefully into the mould. 1st mould done, 2nd mould done, 3rd mould done and when I came to the last mould …… suddenly I noticed something strange happened to my 1st tart coz it doesn’t look right!! OMG ….. what the ....... guess what, the pastry at the bottom decided that it doesn’t want to stay at the bottom either, and floated up to the top of my egg liquid instead!!! That goes the same with the 2nd and 3rd and the rest of my tarts!!! Some pastry even do a 45 degree or a 90 degree vertical float in the middle of the egg liquid!!! Uurrrghhhhhh …… !!!!! What have I done???!!!!!! How to bake the egg tarts with the pastry half floating on the top??? Tell me ~~~??!! #$%^& *head banging hard on the wall* Hubby still with a cheeky smile walk into the kitchen and asked me what’s that on my tray …… auurrggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! I really feel like biting him at that point :P However, the tarts turned out quite tasty although a bit too sweet apart from the indescribably ugly 'different' looks (have you seen an upside down egg tarts before??) :P

^ ^ My disastrous 1st attempt >"<I can't believe that I am actually posting these pictures up here ;P
So for my 2nd attempt, no more greasing on the cups and I make sure that the pastry sticks to the cup like a glue before I pre-bake them and once I saw they starts shrinking, I quickly pull them out of the oven and pour in the egg liquid :) The final outcome is as the picture above, looks ok right?? The tarts taste great after I have cut down more then half the sugar stated in the recipe. I am glad that my 2nd bake turns out pretty well as hubby was having one egg tart after another :P :P.
I wonder is it only me who has such disastrous experience in the baking history? Hahahahaha …… Happy weekend everyone :) :)