Pastéis de Nata

My favourite treat ever since we moved here. I discovered them at Cornish Bakery in Stratford-upon-Avon, a lovely place to stop for coffee and a warm mushroom and mozzarella croissant, not to mention the perfect Cornish pasties with different fillings. My children loved these Portuguese pastries just as much as I did, but the homemade version, based on David Leite’s recipe, is every bit as good. Maybe even better? 😉 I took a little shortcut by using ready-made all-butter puff pastry, but in summer I wouldn’t recommend making your own anyway because of the temperatures in the kitchen.

Pastéis de nata are popular Portuguese mini tarts – custard tarts baked in perfectly crisp puff pastry. Delicious while still warm. They are absolutely wonderful and very hard to resist!

Makes 24.

Ingredients for pastéis de nata:

• 2 sheets of all-butter puff pastry (2 packs of about 300 g each)
• 3 tbsp plain flour
• 1¼ cups milk
• 1 cup + 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick
• ⅔ cup water
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 6 large egg yolks

In a small bowl, whisk together ¼ cup of the milk, 3 tbsp sifted plain flour and the vanilla. Set aside.

Place the water, cinnamon stick and sugar in a saucepan. Bring to the boil, then remove from the heat.

In another saucepan, bring the remaining milk to the boil. Pour the hot milk over the flour mixture and whisk well. Remove the cinnamon stick from the sugar syrup, then pour the syrup into the milk and flour mixture. Mix well. Lightly whisk the egg yolks. Add them to the milk mixture and mix well. Pour into a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat immediately so that the mixture does not curdle. Set aside – the mixture will be very runny; this is how it should be.

Prepare a standard-sized muffin tin. From the rolled-out puff pastry, cut circles slightly larger than the muffin holes, so that the pastry covers the bottom and sides of each hole. Pour the custard mixture into the pastry cases, filling them to about three-quarters of the height of the pastry sides (no more; the custard rises and bubbles during baking, and if you add too much, it will overflow).

Bake the pastéis de nata at 290°C (yes, really!) for about 8–9 minutes. My oven only reaches 270°C, so I baked them at that temperature, using the fan setting, for an extra minute. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack (be careful, they are very hot!).

Pastéis de nata can be served dusted with cinnamon.

Enjoy!

Recipe source: Leite’s Culinaria.