I cannot believe it has taken me this many years on the blog to finally write down a proper pastéis de nata recipe. It feels almost backwards, like writing a novel and forgetting to include the main character. When I was little, my mother would send me down the road with a few coins for a dozen of these from the padaria, and I would inevitably eat one on the walk home and pretend I hadn’t. Sofia does the same thing now with the ones I make here, cinnamon dusted onto her shirt as the evidence.
The real ones, the pastéis de Belém, come from a bakery near the Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon that has guarded its exact recipe since 1837, when monks there first started selling them to make ends meet after the religious orders were dissolved. Every other version, mine included, is technically just called pastel de nata, since only that one bakery is allowed to use the Belém name. Nobody in Portugal will hold that against you at home, though. What matters is the crackling, almost-burnt top and the shattery pastry underneath.
I use store-bought puff pastry here, which is exactly what most Portuguese home cooks and even plenty of pastelarias do these days, whatever the purists tell you. If you love custard the way this family does, you will want to go make my queijadas de nata and queijadas de Sintra next (recipes on the site), or my leite creme if you want the same flavor with a spoon instead of a crust.
Pastéis de Nata Recipe
Prep time: 25 minutes · Cook time: 20 minutes · Total: 45 minutes · Servings: 12 tarts · Calories: ~185 per serving
Ingredients
- For the pastry:
- 1 sheet (about 14 oz) frozen puff pastry, thawed
- Extra flour for rolling
- For the custard:
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 cinnamon stick
- A strip of lemon peel (yellow part only)
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2/3 cup water
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 6 large egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
Instructions
- Roll the thawed puff pastry sheet into a tight log, then slice into 12 even rounds, about 1 inch thick.
- Press each round into the bottom and up the sides of a standard muffin tin cup, using a thumb dipped in cold water to smooth it thin and even. Chill in the fridge while you make the custard.
- In a small saucepan, whisk the flour into 1/4 cup of the milk until smooth, then whisk in the rest of the milk. Add the cinnamon stick and lemon peel and warm over medium heat, whisking, until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.
- In another saucepan, combine the sugar and water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Let it boil undisturbed until it reaches 220°F on a candy thermometer, about 3 to 4 minutes past boiling – you want a light syrup, not a caramel.
- Remove the cinnamon stick and lemon peel from the milk mixture. Slowly pour the hot sugar syrup into the milk mixture in a thin stream, whisking constantly.
- Whisk the egg yolks and vanilla in a bowl, then slowly pour about a cup of the warm milk mixture into the yolks while whisking, to temper them. Pour this back into the rest of the milk mixture and whisk until smooth. Strain through a fine sieve for a silky texture.
- Preheat your oven as hot as it will go, ideally 500 to 550°F, with a rack in the lower third.
- Fill each pastry shell about three-quarters full with custard. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, watching closely, until the tops are deeply blistered with dark brown-black spots and the pastry is golden.
- Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Best eaten warm, dusted with a little cinnamon or powdered sugar if you like.
Recipe Notes
- The scorched black spots are the whole point. Do not pull the tarts out early out of fear of burning them; that caramelization is most of the flavor.
- No candy thermometer? Boil the syrup for exactly 3 minutes after it reaches a full boil. It firms up further as it cools, so slightly under is safer than over.
- Store-bought puff pastry works beautifully and is what most Portuguese pastelarias have used for generations too, whatever anyone tells you about authenticity.
- Leftovers, if there are any, keep for 2 days in a loosely covered container at room temperature. Skip the fridge, which turns the pastry soggy.
