When I travel it’s the food that often creates the lasting memories that I bring home. In Portugal you’ll want to try the Pasteis de Nata custard tarts that bring back mouthwatering memories of my weekend in Lisbon. I found the delicious Portuguese custard tarts in all the Pastelarias or cake shops of Lisbon and now I’ve created my own Pasteis de Nata recipe so you can try them at home.
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They a great choice at Christmas or Easter and can be whisked up at short notice so here’s my favourite world-on-a-plate recipe with a Portuguese theme. If you’ve not visited Lisbon, you may not know what you are missing in this creamy, vanilla perfumed Portuguese egg tart enclosed in a crisp, flaky pastry that are sold in every bakery and served at every hotel breakfast buffet.
While there are plenty of Pastelarias or cake shops around Lisbon where you can buy the tarts, locals and tourists alike swear by the ones that are sold close to the Monastery of Jerónimos at the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém where the cakes are simply known as the Pastéis de Belém. To get there you take the tram from downtown Lisbon to Belém, getting off at the stop before the monastery and look for the queue of people spilling out the shop waiting to buy them warm from the oven.
I made some of the tarts to serve to the family, to be offered either as a teatime treat or as a desert with ice cream. I had to practically fight off the family from eating them all before I photographed them, so you could see what the result was.
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Learn how to make Portugal’s famous egg tarts, Pastel de Nata, during a 2-hour cooking class in a beautiful kitchen with professional and friendly chefs.
This Pastéis de Nata recipe is a hybrid of various recipes I found online and makes up to 24 small tarts or 12+ bigger ones.
Ingredients for my Pastéis de Nata recipe
1 pack of ready made puff/ flaky pastry
500ml milk/ single cream – I used 300ml milk + 200ml cream
6 egg yolks
300g caster sugar
50g flour/ cornflour
A cinnamon stick or 1/4 tsp of powdered cinnamon
2 strips lemon peel
½ tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla pod
Pastéis de Nata recipe – First make the easy custard
1. Put the flour in a pan off the heat and slowly whisk in enough of the milk/cream mixture to make a thin paste with no lumps
2. Gradually whisk in the sugar, then the egg yolks and then the rest of the milk/cream mixture.
3. Add the vanilla essence or pod, the stick of cinnamon or powdered cinnamon and the stips of lemon peel
4. Heat slowly over a low heat whisking constantly as the custard heats through. If the heat is too high or the stirring not constant the mixture may turn into a horrible lumpy, scrambled mixture although it will probably still taste good.
5. Once the mixture turns into a thick custard, take off the heat and allow to cool.
6. Remove by hand the sticks of cinnamon, vanilla pod and lemon peel before using the custard
Bake the Pasteis de Nata
1. Roll out the flaky/ puff pastry as thinly as possible
2. Take a round pastry cutter or glass to cut rounds of pastry that will fit neatly into your individual tart tins which you have already greased
3. Bake at 180 degrees celcius for around 25 minutes but check after 20 minutes. The pastry should be golden and the custard nicely browned.
Serve while warm from the oven or as a desert with vanilla ice cream – they won’t last long!
Explore Lisbon through history, food, and drink on a half-day walking tour that includes a series of tastings, a glass of Portuguese wine, and a ferry trip across the Tagus River.
When we were in Lisbon a few years ago we stopped at the bakery like the rest of the visitors on their way to visit the monastery and because it was raining we ventured past the queue at the front of the shop into the rabbit-warren of cafe rooms behind. They stretched quite a long way back, so by going from room to room we eventually found a table that was free and ordered our Pasteis de Belém with a coffee.
The story goes that in the early 19th century the monks of the nearby monastery sold the ancient recipe to the bakery and the tarts have been made there since 1837, with the recipe remaining a secret, only known by three of the chefs at the bakery. If you visit Lisbon around Christmas time, look out for the Bolo Rei or King cake, a ringed cake topped with colourful crystallised fruits. The cake is eaten up to the epiphany on 6 January and it sometimes has a little token buried in it for one lucky person to find, just as we might put a sixpence in a christmas pudding.
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It you’d like to visit Portugal to try out the Pasteis de Nata from Lisbon, check out the holidays to Portugal that you can find at Expedia and look out for other interesting foods in their world-on-a-plate series.
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This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com
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