Pastis de nata Portuguese custard

tarts
By Duncan on Tue 04 Nov, 2008

Of the many baking projects I've launched in the last ten years, only
one has caused serious weight gain, burns and an absolute lack of
fear of puff pastry. Portuguese custard tarts, known as pastis de
nata (cream pastries) or pastis de Belm (Belm pastries) do
something magical to many eaters. They are an enchanting
combination of lightly crisp pastry layers and a very, very pleasant
egg custard filling. And, of course, they're a little tricky to make at
home.
Once I've started one of my projects I rarely drop the bone until I've
exhausted most avenues. If I remember rightly, it took eighteen
batches of tarts to develop the recipe which was published in The
Age newspaper back in 2004. At the time there were no reliable
recipes online or in any of the books I could find or friends could
source, either in English or Portuguese. It's still the case that few
published recipes are the real thing. Why? Because rather than
admit failure, too many cookbook writers prefer to pretend they'll
fulfill your dreams. If it fails, you'll probably assume you made a
mistake.
Look through your cookbooks and magazine cuttings for a recipe for
these tarts. A surprising number omit to show a picture of the final
product or they make sure they dust the tarts so liberally with icing
sugar and cinnamon that you've got no chance of seeing what
happened to the custard. It's called cheating.
The greatest examples of Portuguese custard tarts have frightening
burnt spots on the surface. That charring might at first seem
unappetising, but it adds a lovely extra dimension to the flavour. For

many home cooks, those spots are what seem to be the

unattainable, essential marks of beauty. It is very difficult to get
them at home, and it's wise to deprioritise such freckles and go for
luscious interiors and texture instead.
A commercial kitchen has hot ovens. HOT. Without setting fire to
your kitchen, you can't get there at home. But with luck and some
experimenting, you might come fairly close to the commercial
product.
A bit like my beloved macarons, it's rare to find a bakery in Australia
that can make them properly. When I was writing the original article,
I travelled near and far in Melbourne, hunting down establishments
producing good tarts. After far too many wild goose chases, it
transpired that, with the exception of one rural bakery producing
embarrassing garbage, every caf and restaurant in Melbournewas
sourcing their tarts from a single bakery in Burwood, the Magical
Munch Bar. I've seen no evidence that anything has changed in the
years since. This producer is reasonably good, better on some days
than other. For better tarts, you have to head to Sydney, where
Fernandes Patisserie in Dulwich Hill and, apparently, La Patisserie
and Sweet Belem in Petersham all make great Portuguese cakes and
tarts.
Ironically, a photo of my tarts which for some reason doesn't appear
on my original newspaper article online is visible (without
permission) on a piece about Portuguese tarts in the Sydney
Morning Herald.

Here's some of what I wrote in 2004:

Whether at a highway roadhouse, a dusty village caf, or an
upmarket town eatery, the tarts are everywhere in Portugal. They
are as ubiquitous as lamingtons (and suffer similar quality
assurance issues), but unlike lamingtons, there is one place just
one which everyone knows serves the best in the land. In the
waterside Lisbon suburb of Belm, a cavernous blue-tiled pastryand-coffee house serves thousands upon thousands of custard tarts
every day. And the tarts here, at the Antiga Confeitaria de Belm,
even have a special name: pastis de Belm. Lisboetas (residents of
Lisbon) and tourists alike flock to the Confeitaria, buying calorifically
frightening numbers of tarts, neatly packaged in nifty cardboard
tubes with little sachets of icing sugar and cinnamon. The impatient
then rush to a bench in the nearby park, usually ignoring the grand
scenery (the Jernimos Monastery, and the Belm Cultural Centre),
in order to devour the tarts at their peak of freshness, warm and
soft. More prim visitors may actually dine at the Confeitaria, taking a
coffee with their repast.

The custard tarts are as prominent a part of Portugal's national

identity as meat pies are for Aussies, except that Australians don't
generally write about, wax lyrical about, meat pies. But search the
web for pastis de nata, and you find an inordinate number of
teenage bloggers extolling the virtues of these tarts, recounting
their most recent tasting, reporting on their visit to the Confeitaria.
Pastes de nata are a pain to make without good guidance, for two
reasons: Firstly, most recipes in English are poor. Secondly, some
recipes in Portuguese are pretty useless too. Thirdly, they are a
maddening combination of two substances which need entirely
disparate treatment custard likes low temperatures, while puff
pastry likes high temperatures. Fourthly, home ovens rarely reach
the ideal temperature. Ok, so that was four reasons, not two, but I
didn't want to scare you.
Below is my slightly revised recipe. You'll also find a good recipe,
though slightly different, over at Leite's Culinaria. We wrote our
respective articles at about the same time, as enthusiasm for these
tarts reached its peak.
Please remember that this material is copyright. If you want to use
any part of it (beyond a very short quote), please contact me for
permission.

RECIPE Pastis de nata [UPDATED]

makes 10
As puff pastry requires high heat for 10-20 minutes, and custard
curdles at high heat after just a few minutes, it is necessary to use
thin puff pastry so that it cooks as quickly as possible. The custard is
stablised slightly by adding some flour to the mixture, but is still
fairly sensitive. That's why it's hard to achieve the burnt spots
without curdling the custard.

Make the pastry first, up to a day ahead. Can't be bothered? Buy a

reallllllly good quality puff pastry instead, though the result will be
inferior. Follow the custard instructions carefully.

The ideal cooking temperature is probably 300-350C. Many ovens

set to their maximum temperature will come close to this on the top
shelf, but you need to know your oven. Convection (fan-forced)
ovens generally cook hotter than standard ovens. Preheat your oven
for at least 30 minutes.
You need standard size muffin pans (or my wonderful little tart
pans
which are 3cm deep and 7cm wide at the rim). Non-stick
pans are probably unsuitable, as most of the coatings only tolerate
temperatures up to 230-250C.
If you want to make sure you get the hang of the cooking time in
your oven, start by cooking just two or three tarts. Taste them once
they've cooled a little (burns!). Your main goal is to cook the pastry
well. I used to recommend prioritising the custard, but undercooked
pastry just makes the tart less impressive. So it's better to accept
that your custard might curdle (it'll taste a bit like bread and butter

pudding), but if you can get the pastry cooked in under about 12
mins, you should have the best of both worlds.
Note that during cooking the custard will rise up and bubble and
look distinctly unpromising.
Pastry
This is about enough pastry for ten shells.
70g plain flour
40-50ml cold water
1/4 tsp salt
55g butter

Make a puff pastry using the above ingredients. Instructions

for making puff pastry (not 'rough puff' or 'flaky') can be found
in most basic cookery books.

For this recipe, the pastry should be folded and rolled at least
three times, but resting time between phases is less important.

If the pastry starts getting warm to the touch, it's time to

refrigerate it for a while.

When finished, roll out the pastry to a 20cm x 10cm

rectangle, 4-5mm thick. Then roll up the pastry into a log shape,
like a rug or swiss-roll, with the long edges forming the ends of
the log. The log will be 4-5cm in diameter.

Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for half an hour.

At this point, make the custard.
Custard
This is enough custard for 10-14 tarts, depending on the size of your
pans.
22g plain flour (not more)
160g sugar
3 egg yolks
1 egg
300ml milk
approx 2cm x 4cm shaving of lemon rind
pure icing sugar and ground cinnamon, for sprinkling

Sift the flour and sugar together into a bowl.

Lightly beat together the egg yolks and whole egg.

Put the milk, lemon rind in a saucepan and gradually bring to

the boil. Remove the lemon rind.

Pour half of the boiling milk over the flour and sugar and stir
until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Add
this mixture to the remaining milk.

Pour a few spoonfuls of the hot mixture onto the beaten egg
and stir well. Then pour the egg into the flour and sugar
mixture, stirring constantly until completely mixed. This is the
finished custard, and should not be cooked further (unlike more
familiar custard types).

Let the custard cool in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 300C or the maximum setting if your oven can't
heat that high.
Remove the pastry from the fridge and with a sharp knife, cut
10 discs from the log, about 1cm thick. Some recipes say that
you should now just press the disc into the pan, and up the
sides, but this can be tricky, so I recommend first gently
flattening the disc with a rolling pin to increase its diameter.

Press the disc into its pan, starting in the middle of the base,
and working outwards, up the sides. The pastry will be thin,
especially on the bottom.

Chill the pans briefly if the pastry has become too warm.

Place the pastry cases on a baking sheet or tray. If you find

your pastry doesn't cook fast enough, using an aluminium tray
may help.

Pour the custard into the pastry cases, leaving about a

centimetre between the custard and the rim of the pastry.

Put the tray in the oven. Use the middle shelf for the first
batch, and adjust if necessary for later batches. Bake for 8-12
minutes. If the pastry edges are browning very well then the
tarts are ready. If you get brown spots on the custard,
congratulations! (But don't bank on it.)

Once you've removed the tarts from the oven, let them cool
for a few minutes, then remove them from their pans, and place
them on a rack to cool. Try to resist the temptation to eat them
straight away, as they are at their best when just warm.

Before eating, sprinkle the tarts with the icing sugar and
cinnamon. Or not.
Please remember that this material is copyright. If you want to use
any part of it (beyond a very short quote), please contact me for
permission.

This batch didn't want to get any spots

This batch did get some spots. The pastry looks less good because the
pans had been lined two days earlier, so the edges had dried a little
before cooking.

And finally
One of my goals after starting Syrup & Tang was to revisit these
tarts and improve my recipe. So much time had passed and my

baking skills had improved. As life would have it, with a different
oven and different trays, I learnt more about baking in one or two
further tests for writing this article. Happily, the recipe needed very
few tweaks (mostly in technique).
Now all I need is a caf pingado and a view of Lisbon
For final entertainment, here's a really sweet video on how to make
pastis de nata. Unfortunately they're not quite the Portuguese
thing, but this Brazilian take on them. The video is 8 mins long but is
quite charming.