Pastéis De Nata — Your Next Crowd-Pleasing Sweet Treat
By: Sydney Eliason
Tags: European, Baking, Travel Writing, Recipes For Cooking, Recipe

(Pronounced Past-eesh de Nada)

Have you ever been to Portugal? If not — add it to the top of your “post-covid travel plans” list.

It is one of the most incredible countries I have ever visited. The people are incredibly kind and patient if you can’t speak fluent Portuguese (or any Portuguese at all, really). Definitely try to speak it though — it’s so beautiful, and when in Rome (er, Portugal), right?

They have really amazing food and stellar wines that you really can’t get outside of the country. The wines themselves will have to be a different blog post, though many different blog posts. There is so much history and variety there!

Okay — back to the food. My first day in Portugal was an adventure — this is related, I promise — my (now) husband and I were traveling together, and we decided to purchase the car insurance when we picked up the rental (American drivers in Europe, it just made sense) — so of course, they decided to upgrade us.

They upgraded us to this brand spanking new Mercedes C Class. We were expecting the smart car from 2006. Naturally, it was quite exciting, and well… nerve-wracking. As a result of this new car, we knew we couldn’t park it half-on the street and half on the side-walk like everyone else. We had to find a garage. Well, the garage we found didn’t tell us that the next day would be a holiday — so it was closed. Like big-solid-metal-gate-around-the-entry-way-closed. And our Air BnB was booked the next night, so we had to be out of there ASAP.

Long story short — we found this wonderful man named Louis, and he actually used to date a girl from Minnesota, where we were from! He was able to sort it all out, called a guy from the garage, and asked him to come up and open it up for us. These are the types of people you want to be around, am I right? Talk about good samaritans! Well — the guy from the garage (Ricardo) wasn’t going to be there for about an hour, so Louis showed us the best cafe, a block away, to get Pastéis De Nata and espressos. We spent the next hour chatting and learning all about Lisbon and Portugal!

Not only was my faith in humanity re-ignited, but also my faith in desserts, making any situation better. The Pastéis de Nata — a classic dessert from Portugal. It was heaven. It was better than that. Vanilla beans, cinnamon, a hint of lemon, custard, and a crunchy crust?! I was so hooked. I could have eaten ten right then and there. I only ate 1 to be polite, and then proceeded to stop at, at least 1 cafe per town we visited (which was many in a single day often-times) for the next 13 days we were there.

THAT’S how good they are. So good. So, so, good. It also didn’t help that everywhere we went knew how to attract tourists with them. All the bakeries would have windows with large sheet pans containing row upon row of Pastéis De Nata. They had other things, of course too, but who could pay attention to a croissant with a million layers next to one of these bad boys lined up in perfect rows??

Naturally, as any human would, when I came back, I went through serious withdrawals—no other sweet satisfied. Creme brulée was just brulée; creme-filled doughnuts were just… too creamy. Creme Anglais was… exactly that, Anglais, not Portuguese! Not custard and crunch. Where was the spice with bright hints of lemon? So I found a Portuguese cookbook (in English, of course) and practiced a few different recipes before creating this one.

This is my favorite dessert/snack/brunch item/sweet treat/breakfast of all time. It’s great when you need to feed a crowd, and in my experience (personal and restaurant), it’s a crowd-pleaser.

Even better, I have a hack to make it easier to make. Suppose you’re a professional baker and know how to make your own puff pastry — job well done. For the rest of us, use the store-bought. It will save you a lot of grief!

I also learned a fool-proof way of thickening the eggs just enough for this recipe. Instead of trying to put them back into the pot and cooking over the stove until thickened (and making sure the eggs don’t scramble on you), wait until your milk cools to a point where it is hot but not burning to add in the eggs and whisk very well — off the heat.

So here it is! My recipe of Pastéis De Nata

Prep Time: 15–20 minutes

Baking time: 15–20 minutes

Yield: A lot of filling — make as much as you want with puff pastry and freeze the rest.

500 g Sugar (2 1/2 cups)

8.33 oz Water (1 1/3 cups)

17 oz Milk (just over 2 Cups)

75 g Flour (2/3 Cup)

5 egg yolks

1 Whole Egg

1 Vanilla Pod

2 Cinnamon Sticks

Zest of 1 Lemon

1 Thawed Box of Puff Pastry

Method:

1. Heat the water and sugar in a small pot and bring it to a boil for 3 minutes until syrupy.

2. In another small pot, heat 1/2 milk with lemon zest and cinnamon sticks.

3. Meanwhile, mix the flour with the other 1/2 of the cold milk. Get it as smooth and possible with no lumps.

4. Once the milk is at a heavy simmer (scalding), add the flour/milk mixture to the pot. Whisk well for 1–2 minutes, keeping the pot on medium-low heat. It will thicken slightly.

5. Add the syrup mixture to the pot with the milk mixture, whisking well.

6. Take off heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes before adding in eggs; frequently stir to help cool faster. (This is so that the eggs don’t over-cook, the ideal temperature is about 90 F or very warm but not uncomfortable to the touch).

7. While your mixture is cooling, grease two muffin tins and roll out puff pastry sheets to 1/8″ thick (if you like a lot of crust, keep just as is, and roll only to smooth out the seams).

8. Using a biscuit cutter or a clean juice cup, cut circles slightly smaller than your muffin tins. The dough should just barely reach 2/3 of the way up the molds when pressed into the tin. Depending on how thick you like your pastry and how many sheets are in your box, you may not be able to get all 24 with one box.

9. Once your liquid mixture is very warm to the touch but not burning, whisk in your egg yolk and egg very well until completely smooth.

10. Fill the molds with filling (fill just to the edge of the puff pastry ~ 2 Tbsp/mold) and bake at 375 F until the egg mixture is firm and browning just slightly and the puff pastry is fully cooked and flakey. About 15–20 minutes.

You may notice some browning on the custard — this is totally normal! Some bakeries in Portugal like that more than others — it’s more the caramelization of the sugar than the burning of the eggs. However, if you don’t want them so brown, cover the top for the first 5 minutes of cooking.

10. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Flip muffin tin over to remove the pastéis de Nata. Sprinkle some cinnamon over them and enjoy as is, or with a shot of espresso.

Happy Cooking!