9. Pasteis de Nata


Portuguese custard tarts

Prepared puff pasty – defrosted but kept cold
1 ¾ cups whole milk
¼ cup cream
4 egg yolks
3 Tbsp white sugar
Pinch salt
2 Tbsp Plain flour
½ cinnamon stick
2 strips lemon peel
½ tsp vanilla extract

1.In a sauce pan add milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar, salt, flour mix well with a whisk to ensure all the ingredients are well combined, do not turn heat on yet.
2.Once all ingredients are combined and there are no lumps of sugar or flour add cinnamon stick, lemon peel and vanilla.
3.Turn heat on to low stirring continuously and gently with whisk. *Note it’s very important to heat the milk slowly, if the milk is heated too quickly, egg yolks could coagulate like scrambled eggs and ruin the consistency of the custard.
4.Continue stirring until it cream becomes quite thick and resembles a rich pudding. Watch for thickening around the edges of the pan, you want a really smooth cream so make certain to get in the sides and bottom edges of the pan.
5.Let cool completely. When cooled, remove cinnamon stick and lemon peel.
6.To avoid milk skin from forming on custard you can place parchment paper on top of warm custard and it will lift out easily when you go to use it to fill puff pasty shells.

Preparing Pastry Shells

1.Preheat oven to 225F (107C) [update: 300 F (148C)]
2.Roll out cold puff pastry dough with pin on floured surface, until 1/4 cm thick.
3.Once rolled out thin, dusk off excess flour and begin rolling puff pastry like a long cigar. Roll pastry snugly but not tight, just enough to avoid a lot of space or air pockets in roll.
4.Place pastry roll length wise and cut in 4cm lengths
5.Then take each cut piece in hand and push down center of roll to meet center of opposite side, gently press pastry with fingers to spread out dough to create what will feel like half of a hallow pastry ball. Work in circular pattern and pastry will start to thin and from a cup shape. If dough gets sticky use a little flour to help it along. Finished shells should be about 1/4cm, thin but not enough to see your hand through. If you like puff pastry you can make the shells a little thicker, but a couple of tries of the finished version will let you know your preference.
6.Place pastry in muffin tray, and spread out to sides but don’t stretch dough upward, just gently press against side of muffin tin to ensure it won’t shrink too much when baking.
7.When all pastry shells are ready fill with pastry cream, do not fill to top. Fill to ¾ or a bit more but leaving 1- 1.5cm at top of pastry.
8.Place custards in oven and bake for 15min, but keep eye on custards as some ovens can burn top quite quickly, while others don’t cook the pastry quickly enough. If pastry around sides looks deep golden colour pastries are done.


This recipe comes straight from Algarve Buzz and as soon as i heard the phrase 'portuguese custard tarts' i was sold as they are one of my favourite sweet treats since first trying them at Borough Market.

The recipe is actually, as self confessed, quite simple and fun to make- shaping the pastry cases is particularly fun and novel! We did run into a couple of issues with this recipe though which, had i have read the comments, might have been avoided. The big change to make is cooking temperature- i went with the suggested 150C which was just too low. The custard and pastry started to cook too slowly and rather than 'setting' puffed up massively. Definitely a higher temperature (possibly as high as your oven can go- ours is 220C) for the next attempt.

Also, the recipe doesn't state a quantity for the puff pastry outside of 'prepared' so i just went with a shop bought 500g packet*. Although the cooking may have affected the outcome, i did feel like 500g of puff pastry could stretch comfortably to make 18 tarts as they were slightly dough heavy. Whether this would require an increase in the custard mixture, i'm not sure, but i will definitely experiment next time i make these.

These 'issues' aside, the tarts were still lovely with the custard having a lovely texture and flavour without being too sweet. Plus, although it is purely aesthetic, the tart cases do have the trademark swirl on the base which is a nice touch. If i ever go to Lisbon, which i hopefully will, i must must must make sure i try Pasteis de Belem, the first and original Portuguese custard tart which are still sold from the original shop.


*must try making my own puff pastry!

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