Not so long ago a Portugese friend had his birthday. Coincidentally, I stumbled upon a recipe for those delicious pastries. I decided to give them a try and surprise him.

Nie tak dawno temu kolega z Portugalii miał urodziny. Przypadkiem w tym czasie natknąłem się na przepis  na te pyszne ciastka. Postanowiłem je wypróbować i zaskoczyć go.

I was actually very surprised about how easy they were to make. Their recipe comes from French monasteries and through a series of events it reached Portugese patisseries. The key ingredient of the filling is a yolk of an egg. It takes a bit to prepare, but isn’t very complicated. The base is a simple puff pastry. You can buy some or make it as it isn’t very difficult. I’ll share my experience on that at some point.

I would like to thank RoadTripBus blog for the recipe and inspiration on how to show my appreciation to a friend.

Planning

There isn’t really anything to plan – get some puff pastry and make the cakes. Preparing them for baking takes about 20 minutes and baking takes another 20 minutes.

You will need a muffins or cup cakes tins, a bowl, a strainer and two saucepans.

Pasteis de nata

Ingredients

• 300-350 g puff pastry (I bought it at a store)
• 30 g plain flour
• 250 ml milk
• a piece of cinnamon bark (not a powder)
• 200 g sugar
• 125 ml water
• 4 egg yolks
• about a third of a lemon’s peel
• some icing sugar and cinnamon powder for decorating

Preparation

1. Roll the pastry to about 3 mm thick (or if using the one from a store, just unroll it to remove the paper)
2. Roll it again tightly and divide into 12 swirl pieces
3. Put the pieces flat into the tins and then work them with your fingers to flatten in a way that will cover the walls of the tins
4. Put the flour in a bowl, and add half of the milk and whisk it thoroughly
5. Peel the lemon, put the peel in a saucepan with the rest of the milk and the cinnamon bark, put it on medium heat and wait till it starts boiling
6. At the same time put the sugar and water in another pan and start heating, and give it a stir from time to time
7. Now your milk is boiling. Add the milk with flour to it and mix till it gets dense, like a pudding
8. This is a good time to set your oven to 250 Celsius degrees or 220 with a fan. Know your oven
9. The sugar has already melted by now. Once it starts boiling, reduce the heat and leave it like this for about three minutes
10. Pour the sugar syrup steadily and slowly into the pan with milk, stirring all the time
11. Pour it all through a strainer to a bowl to remove all the solid things from boiling the milk
12. Add egg yolks and whisk it thoroughly
13. Just to recap: you have cupcake tins with the pastry, the filling and an oven on 250 C. And some washing up to do
14. Pour the filling into the tins. Do not fill them 100% – the dough will shrink slightly and the filling will be boiling, so it might overflow
15. Put the pastries into the oven on a middle level and bake for 16-17 minutes
16. Start controlling the pastries after about 15 minutes – some ovens will require more time, some less. The expectation is to have a baked pastry and a filling that is boiling and is burnt here and there
17. Once ready, take them out and give them time to cool down a bit before you take them out of the tin

Pasteis de nata

Serve them slightly warm, dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon. I didn’t know that until Andre told me. They were still good despite this missing bit. “The real thing”, he said.