Queijadas de Sintra are proof that Portuguese pastry genius is not limited to the pastéis de nata: these little cheese tarts from the fairy-tale town of Sintra have been made since the Middle Ages — they were once even used to pay rents — and they remain one of the country’s most beloved sweets.
The formula is a crisp, thin pastry shell around a filling of fresh cheese, sugar, cinnamon and lemon zest: creamy, fragrant and just rustic enough to feel homemade even in the fanciest pastry shop.
The traditional cheese is requeijão, but ricotta works beautifully in the US. Have them with an espresso, as Sintra intends, and understand why poets wrote about these tarts.
Queijadas de Sintra Recipe
Prep time: 20 minutes (plus 30 minutes chilling) · Cook time: 20 minutes · Total: about 1 hour 10 minutes · Servings: 6 · Calories: ~366 per serving
Ingredients
- For the pastry:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cubed
- ⅓ cup cold water
- For the filling:
- 1½ cups ricotta cheese or requeijão
- 1 cup sugar
- 3 large egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Zest of 1 lemon
Instructions
- Mix the flour and salt, rub in the cold butter until crumbly, then add the cold water a tablespoon at a time until a dough forms. Wrap and chill at least 30 minutes.
- Mix the ricotta and sugar until smooth, beat in the yolks one by one, then stir in the flour, cinnamon and lemon zest.
- Preheat the oven to 375°F and grease a muffin tin or small tart pans.
- Roll the pastry to ⅛ inch and cut circles slightly larger than the cups. Press them gently into the tin.
- Fill each shell nearly to the top.
- Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until the filling sets and turns lightly golden with crisp pastry edges.
- Cool 10 minutes in the tin, then finish on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Recipe Notes
- Authentic queijadas use a paper-thin, almost crackly shell — roll the dough as thin as you dare.
- Requeijão from a Portuguese market is the real thing; whole-milk ricotta is the best stand-in.
- They keep 3 days covered, and the cinnamon-lemon aroma only settles in deeper.
