Pastéis de Nata: Take another little piece of my Tart now, baby

For the past day, I’ve been attempting to make Pastéis de Nata—Portuguese egg custard tarts. To be totally honest, these pastries should not have worked out. Like, at all! Portu-guess I should’ve trusted the process!

If you’re anything like me right now, quarantine has made me want to travel more than ever (like, beyond my backyard). So Lisbon has been on the mind (and appetite)! I first discovered these heavenly tarts in 2017, when my friend and I visited Lisbon. We had read that Pastéis de Nata were a Lisbon staple, but we knew nada about them!  We had seen pictures, but couldn’t imagine what they would taste like: they looked savory like a cheese, but also caramelized like crème brûlée. After trying one, we instantly became hooked, stopping into every pastry shop we passed (fortunately for our appetites, unfortunately for our diets). So if you’re intrigued, let me try to give you a taste before you dive in to baking the unknown…

What to Expect:

Pastéis de Nata have a flaky, thin ‘cup’ that hold a creamy, not-too-sweet custard. The yellow color comes from the egg yolks—no lemon here! Cinnamon decorates the top and arrives in swirls throughout the tart, giving it a gentle sweetness. The tart’s combination of crunchy and smooth is so satisfying that it’ll be gone in seconds.

What I Recommend:

So this was my first time baking these delicacies…well, kind of. I had two false starts before successfully making the pastries. So the third time really was a charm. Each restart was due to my struggle with rough puff pastry. I now know why they’re called ROUGH puff. Before this, my only experience with rough puff pastry was observing Great British Bake Off contestants freak out over their rough puff pastries—a phenomenon I can wholeheartedly relate to now.

So first things first, SEPARATE THE BUTTER. It’s not clear in the recipe. Do not mix it with the flour mixture until later—no matter how tempted you are. You’ll fold it in a bit later. And before you attempt the folding step, I highly recommend watching videos of bakers using the ‘book method’ of folding over dough after covering a third of it with butter. You’ll have to use this method a few times in order to spread the butter evenly.

About the butter: I should mention that somehow I magically ended up using only one-third of the butter that was required in the recipe! (Does this make my version healthier? Hmm.) So I recommend one stick (which should provide some buffer butter) instead of the recipe’s 1¾.

After you have covered the dough in butter after making three ‘books’, roll out your dough as thinly as you can. That’s a point I wish the recipe had emphasized. The thinness is important for the next step: rolling the dough into a log. You’ll need a visible swirl—a step that cannot be underestimated in order to achieve the tart’s quintessential flakiness!

Once the pastry has chilled in the refrigerator overnight, cut the log into one-inch thick slices. You should see that hard-earned swirl in each piece. Put each slice into a muffin tin and push one down from the center of the swirl. And then wait. Do the same to the next one. I don’t understand the chemistry behind it, but in my experience, waiting and letting the dough warm to room temperature made it exponentially easier to spread up the sides of the muffin tins.

The custard part was pretty straight-forward. So I have just one nata bene: remember to keep stirring!

I hope you have less difficulty with these Pastéis de Nata then I did. But despite my setbacks, I persevered because there are so worth the resTarts. Enjoy a taste of Lisbon--PortuGAL out! ✌🏻

Recipe by Tasting Table:

INGREDIENTS

For the Puff Pastry:

• 1½ sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1¾ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• ⅔ cup water
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt

For the Filling and Garnish:

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ⅔ cup water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 cup, plus 6 tablespoons, whole milk, divided
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• 6 egg yolks
• Ground cinnamon, for garnish

DIRECTIONS

1. Make the puff pastry: In a small bowl, whisk the butter until it is the consistency of sour cream. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the flour, water and salt. Mix on low speed, scraping the bowl down occasionally, until the mixture comes together and has a tacky consistency.
2. Transfer to a well-floured work surface and form into a 1-inch rectangle. Using a floured rolling pin, roll the dough into a ½-inch-thick rectangle, 10 inches long. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for 15 minutes.
3. Remove the plastic wrap and roll the dough into a 15-inch square, dusting with more flour as needed. Spread a third of the butter on the bottom half of the dough, leaving a 1-inch rim. Using a bench scraper, fold the top half of the dough over the butter. Press the edges to seal and pat the dough with the rolling pin. Roll the dough into another 15-inch square. Spread half of the remaining butter on the bottom half of the dough, leaving a 1-inch rim. Using the bench scraper, fold the top half of the dough over the butter. Press the edges to seal. Pat the dough with the rolling pin and rotate the dough so that the seam is facing you. Now, roll into an 18-inch square
4. Spread the remaining butter all over the dough, leaving a 1-inch rim. Starting with the edge closest to you, roll the dough into a tight log. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until very firm, at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.
5. Make the filling: Preheat the oven to 500°. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, water and cinnamon stick over high heat. Bring to a boil and cook for 1 minute, then remove from the heat and let sit until ready to use.
6. On a lightly floured surface, trim the ends of the dough to make sure they're even, then cut the log into thirty ½-inch slices. Place each slice into the cavity of an egg tart mold or muffin tin, with the cut side of the spiral facing up. Use your thumb to press the center of the spiral into the bottom of the pan and continue pressing to evenly flatten the dough against the bottom and sides of the cavity, extending about 1⁄16 inch above the rim of the tart molds or ¾ inch up the sides of the muffin tin. Repeat with the remaining dough. Refrigerate until firm, 10 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat 1 cup, plus 1 tablespoon, of the milk over medium heat until bubbles begin to form around the edges, 4 to 5 minutes. In a large bowl, whisk the flour with the remaining 5 tablespoons of milk. Continue whisking while adding the hot milk in a slow, steady stream. Discard the cinnamon stick from the sugar syrup and whisk the syrup into the milk mixture in a steady stream. Return to the saucepan and cook over low heat, whisking constantly, until thickened 10 to 12 minutes.
8. Add the yolks to the mixture and whisk until well combined, then strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Pour 1½ tablespoons of the warm filling into each pastry shells.
9. Bake until the shells are golden brown and crisp, the custards are set, and the tops are blackened in spots, 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool in the pans on wire racks for 5 minutes. Then, remove the molds, transfer the tarts to the wire racks and spr