portuguese custard tarts

Now, I’ve made these before without a hitch. In fact, they were really straightforward, no issues whatsoever. Granted, I made them in Brisbane, in my mum’s awesome kitchen filled with everything you possibly need (plus, her oven is truly amazing. I’m so glad my parents decided to renovate our family home and that my mum gave herself the kitchen she’s always dreamed of). And then, having craved egg tarts for weeks gave in to temptation and decided I would make them again.

Talk about a disaster. Wait, let’s rewind. Ok so I started off ok, separated the eggs, whisked in the sugar, starch flour and milk and the mixture was starting to boil. All going according to plan, just as it should. But after constant stirring, I was wondering why the boiling mixture wasn’t getting any thicker. (Poor) instinct told me, no matter, I’ll just add in some more starch flour. Fail. That just made the once smooth mixture lumpy and gross. Having been raised never to waste food, I added in a half a cup of rice, a dash of ground cinnamon and nutmeg, thinking that I could make a rice pudding. After 10 minutes the delicious aroma wafted through the kitchen but the mixture looked like vomit. I kid you not. The rice wasn’t cooking and more and more of the mixture was sticking to the bottom of the pan. I kept putting a bit more milk during the 10 minutes but I think that made it worse. The liquid I was adding kept evaporating. Epic fail.

I’d had enough. I scraped as much as I could out of the pan and into the bin. I hate wasting ingredients but I knew it was a lost cause. To make things worse, I had this pan with a lot of milk, egg, sugar, starch flour and rice stuck to the bottom. Good thing I remembered something my mum taught me – if you have a non-stick pan with a lot of food stuck to the bottom, to make it easier to clean, add some water to the pan and place on the stove. Cook it off (until it boils) and use a wooden spoon or some sort of sturdy scraper and the stuck food will come off. Voila it worked!

So what was the cause of the epic fail? I had put in two teaspoons of starch flour, rather than 2 tablespoons of it. Yep, a simple mistake like that has dire consequences.

Right. Take two.

A much better result! I admit, I did deviate from the original recipe but that’s only because I didn’t want to brave the cold and decided to just make do with what was in my pantry. This time around I used 2 egg yolks and 1 whole egg instead of 3 egg yolks, raw sugar instead of caster sugar and soy milk (Soy Milky by Vitasoy) rather than cream and milk. I quite like making these tarts with soy milk – the custard is still nice and creamy but it tricks our mind into thinking we’re doing something good for us. Plus, it also means that our lactose intolerant friends can enjoy a nice egg tart too. 

Now, I’ve also been reading other blogs where people are having issues with getting the nice brown colour on top. I haven’t had that issue. That’s probably because usually, I’m prone to burning things. I like to put the oven on fan forced at about 200C. If it’s burning too quickly, you can always turn down the temperature. Now, when they come out of the oven, the tarts will puff up a bit and then they'll deflate. Don't worry, it won't change how good they'll taste!

Adapted from Bill Granger’s pasteis de nata recipe

portuguese egg tarts

preparation time | 10 minutes for custard plus cooling time, 15 minutes for tarts

cooking time | 20-25 minutes

makes | 12 tarts

3 egg yolks

110g sugar

2tbsp cornflour or starch flour

230ml cream

170ml milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 sheet of puff pastry

Ground cinnamon

1| Lightly grease a 12-hole muffin / cupcake tray.

2| Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour in a pan until smooth. Gradually whisk in the cream and milk until smooth.

3| Place the pan over medium heat, and cook, continuously stirring until bubbles appear (come to the boil) and the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Cover the pan with cling film wrap to prevent a skin forming and leave the custard to cool.

4| Preheat the oven to 200°C.

5 | Sprinkle the cinnamon over the pastry sheet. Cut the sheet in half and put one half on top of the other. Set aside for about 5 minutes. Roll up the pastry tightly from the short end and cut the pastry log into 12 x 1cm rounds. Lay each pastry round on to a lightly floured surface and use a rolling pin to roll out until each is about 10cm in diameter.

6| Press the pastry rounds into the muffin tin. Spoon the cooled custard into the pastry cases and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until the pastry and custard is nice and golden. Leave the tarts in the tin for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

If you want to make a healthier version – use 2 egg yolks and 1 whole egg, raw sugar instead of white and 400ml of milk (you can use soy milk – tastes just as good!). Adding in a bit of cinnamon to the pastry will also do wonders - sure these may not end up tasting like the original Portuguese tart, but I think you'll find them just as good.