March 25, 2015
Rob
1

Recipe: Pasteis de nata (Portuguese custard tarts)

French pastry is good, but it’s not the only one in the world! After a virtual tasty trip to Austria for the apple strudel of my last post, this time we head to Portugal.

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Pastéis de nata or Pastéis de Belém are a national institution in Portugal: they are baked puff pastry tarts filled with custard. The custard is usually of a neutral flavour, but I added a bit of vanilla just because I’m addicted to it; the baked tarts, though, are served with sprinkled cinnamon on top.

Of course I used my home-made puff pastry for these pastéis, but I admit I haven’t understood one step of the recipe yet: many books and blogs call for regular laminated puff pastry to be rolled (that would give even more layers) but then crushed to form the tart bases (and this is not a good news for our beautiful layers).

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I think the interest of having puff pastry is to have crunchy and flaky layers as the base of a pastel, but with the most common procedure I found (which is the one explained in this recipe), the result is buttery but not too crunchy nor flaky. Next time I’ll avoid crushing all the layers to see the difference!

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As for the filling, some versions of these pastéis feature pastry cream and some a custard sauce (crème anglaise): I used the latter and the result was excellent for me!

Bom apetite!

 

Pastéis de nata

Print recipe

Ingredients

Base

500gPuff pastry

Filling

250mlWhole milk
250mlHeavy cream
6Egg yolks
150gGranulated sugar
1/2Vanilla bean, split (optional)
Cinnamon (ground)

Directions

1
Heat the milk, cream, half of the sugar and the vanilla bean in a saucepan on medium heat, whisking regularly
2
Whisk together the egg yolks with the remaining sugar in a mixing bowl
3
When the milk and cream mixture is boiling, pour it in three times on the yolk mixture, whisking quickly and continuously to prevent curdling
4
Pour the mixture back into the saucepan on low heat and stir continuously with a spatula. Move the spatula back and forth gently and always in the same direction to avoid incorporating air.
5
At the beginning the mixture will be very liquid, then the air bubbles will disappear and the custard will become a darker yellow colour.
6
Continue stirring the custard until it reaches 82°C (pasteurisation temperature). Keep it at 82°C for a couple of minutes. In any case, the custard temperature should remain below 85°C to prevent the egg yolks from curdling (this means: absolutely DO NOT BOIL it!).
When the custard reaches the correct temperature, it will be sufficiently thickened and will coat the spatula or the back of a spoon.
7
Strain the custard into a clean bowl (important: do not put it back in the same bowl that contained the raw egg yolk mixture)
8
Place the bowl with the custard over an ice bath to cool down quickly. Stir with a clean spatula and turn the bowl frequently. Finally cover and keep refrigerated.
9
Roll out the puff pastry horizontally and vertically until you obtain a large rectangle (tip: you can rotate the dough of 90 degrees often, this will also prevent it from sticking to the work surface)
10
Starting from the short side, roll the dough until you obtain a thick cylinder
11
Using both hands, stretch the dough cylinder uniformly so it becomes longer (and thinner)
12
Cut 12 pieces of 2.5-3cm each
13
Brush a muffin pan with melted butter
14
Flatten the pieces of dough with your hands (or rolling pin) and make 8-9cm rounds, large enough to fit in the pan
15
Place each round in the muffin pan, making sure they stick the sides and stretching the dough if necessary
16
Pour the custard sauce in each "pastel"
17
Bake at 210° for around 20-25 minutes (the custard will rise and boil, it's normal) then for 3 minutes under the grill at maximum temperature
18
When the surface of the pasteis de nata is caramelised, remove them from the oven and let them cool down at room temperature before removing them from the pan. They are usually served warm with sprinkled cinnamon on top.

Note

The baked pastéis de nata can be stored at room temperature in an an air-tight container or a cake bell for a couple of days.

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