Portuguese Egg Tarts
Portuguese egg tarts, or Pasteis de Nata, are without doubt one of the best pastries ever invented. This is not the same as the Hong Kong style egg tarts that you might see at dimsum places; those have a more shortbread-like crust, while these are crisp and flaky. I've made these twice now; once making the dough myself, once using frozen puff pastry. The frozen puff pastry doesn't turn out quite as nice, but it saves a heck of a lot of time and effort, so I'd suggest just going with frozen puff pastry. It's actually not too difficult to make if you're using frozen puff pastry. For my previous attempt, I added 1/3 cup of all-purpose flour for the custard; I would suggest adding quite a bit less.
Active Time: 1 hr 15 min
Total Time: 1 hr 30 min
Ingredients
> frozen puff pastry (2 sheets)
> white sugar (3/4 cup)
> water (1/3 cup)
> cinnamon stick (1)
> lemon zest (1 lemon, peeled)
> AP flour (3 tbsp)
> salt (1/4 tsp)
> milk (1 1/2 cups)
> egg yolks (6)
> vanilla extract (1 tsp)
Instructions
To make the custard:
1. Make the sugar syrup: in a saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar, water, cinnamon, and lemon zest. Bring it up to a boil. Once it reaches that state, turn off the heat and reserve.
2. In another saucepan, combine flour, salt, and milk. Whisk vigorously for a few minutes. Then turn the heat up to medium, and stir constantly. Continue to stir / heat until the mixture thickens slightly. Let sit for at least 10 minutes to cool.
3. Mix in the egg yolks, sugar syrup (you may need to re-heat it slightly to make sure the sugar is still dissolved), and vanilla extract. Whisk until fully combined.
4. Strain and pour into a liquid measuring cup to remove any solids (cinnamon stick, lemon peel) or lumps of flour.
Finally, making the tart:
1. Cut the dough into equally-sized pieces. I used a relatively small muffin tin, and two sheets of frozen puff pastry (about ~1kcal) made around 12 pieces. Adjust accordingly, depending on the muffin tin and amount of puff pastry you have.
2. On a floured work surface, roll the frozen puff pastry into (approximately) a circle. It should be relatively thin, maybe ~1/8 inch thick. Place it into the muffin tin mold, and make sure that the dough goes all the way to the top of each muffin hole.
3. Evenly pour the custard base into the pastries, around 80-90% of the way up the dough itself.
4. Bake in an extremely hot oven (~450F, give or take) for around 15 minutes, depending on the size of your tarts.
5. Remove and let cool for a few minutes. Use a knife to loosen the edges, remove, let cool slightly, and serve. Enjoy!
Notes/Tips:
> If you're feeling ambitious and want to make the dough by yourself ... check out Food Wishes' video on Portuguese egg tarts! I referenced that, it's a pretty good reference. But realistically speaking, just use frozen puff pastry. It'll save tons of time and effort.
> When rolling out the dough, be generous with flouring your work surface, the rolling pin, and the dough. The dough will likely be pretty wet, sticky, and hard to work with.
> Make sure to preheat the oven well in advance. Not surprisingly, it takes a very long time to preheat the oven to 450-500. It's important that the oven is very hot to achieve that nice caramelized top. Be careful though -- 450 is extremely hot.
> The cinnamon and lemon zest are entirely optional. I think the lemon zest adds a nice citrus-y note to the tart, but I couldn't really taste the cinnamon in the quantity that I added it.
> When you take the tarts out of the oven initially, the filling will have puffed up dramatically. This is normal -- it'll collapse back to level after cooling a bit.