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Pasteis De Nata – The Best Portuguese Dessert

Recipes, Travel

(Pasteis de Nata is Pronounced Past-eesh De Nada)

How we discovered Pasteis de Nata in Portugal

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).

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 – actually many different blog posts. There is so much history and variety there!

Our First Day In Portugal

Okay – back to the food. My first day in Portugal was an adventure – my (now) husband (soon to be fiance at the time) and I were traveling together and we got the car insurance with the rental – 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. Regardless, because of this new car, we knew we couldn’t park it half-on the street and half on the sidewalk 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. 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 bought his, of course, and spent the next hour chatting and learning all about Lisbon and Portugal!

Pasteis de Nata became a staple food

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, 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??

Finding The Best Pasteis De Nata Recipe

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 warm cinnamon spice? And when paired with a bitter espresso – so delicious!

This is my favorite dessert/snack/brunch item/sweet treat/breakfast of all time. And, I have a hack to make it a bit easier to make.

Pro Tips

There is an element of this recipe where it can get a little dicey — whenever you’re mixing two hot mixtures, especially if one has flour in, be very conscious to pour slowly and whisk constantly while doing so. Otherwise, the flour will clump up and you’ll have little dense parts of flour. Not good. Although, not terrible either, because this recipe is pretty foolproof. I’ve strained out those chunks, and I’ve also just tried baking a few with the chunks in there, and both times it turned out OK. But I do think it’s better if you can avoid that situation. So – pour slow, whisk fast!

So here it is! My recipe of Pastéis De Nata

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Pastéis De Nata

Pasteis De Nata - fresh out of the oven!

A cinnamon, vanilla and lemon custard in a crispy Phyllo cup base. The longest part of this is layering and cutting the Phyllo, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a breeze!

  • Prep Time: 35 minutes
  • Cook Time: 20 minutes
  • Total Time: 55 minutes
  • Yield: 48 1x
  • Category: Breakfast
  • Cuisine: Portuguese

Ingredients

Units Scale

Custard Filling

  • 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

Phyllo Cups

  • 2 Thawed Package of Phyllo Dough (if making 48 and using all the custard)
  • 12 Sticks Butter Melted (as needed for brushing)
  • Pastry Brush
  • Large Biscuit Cutter (a ~1/2″ wider than the widest part of your muffin tin)

Instructions

1. Heat the water and sugar in a small pot, bring 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 minute, keeping the pot on the heat. It will thicken slightly.

5. Add in the syrup mixture very, very, slowly to the pot with the milk mixture, whisking well. If you add too much too quickly it will separate and you will have chunks of flour. If this happens – whisk quickly and constantly to eliminate as many chunks as you can. Then add to the egg yolks, whisk well again, and strain out the chunks. 

6. Take off heat and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before adding in eggs, stir frequently to help cool faster. (This is so that the eggs don’t over-cook, the ideal temperature is about 90 F or warm to the touch).

7. While your mixture is cooling, preheat your oven to 375 F. Lightly grease two muffin tins and take out phyllo dough. This will come in sheets, and it’s best if you have a lightly damp (mostly dry) clean kitchen towel on top of the sheets to keep them from drying out.

8. What you need is a melted stick of butter and a brush, take the first sheet and brush it lightly with butter, top it with a second, and repeat until you have 4 layers of phyllo. Then using a biscuit cutter, cut out the circles. Repeat as needed until you have enough circles for your muffin tin. I will usually layer my sheets all at once and then cut them all at once, but this requires quite a bit of counter space. You can get about 9-11 circles per 4-layered rectangle.

9. Whisk your hot milk mixture into the egg yolks until smooth.

10. Fill the molds you made with the phyllo dough (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 phyllo is golden and flakey. About 15-20 minutes.

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

Notes

If you don’t want to make so many pasteis de natas, you can halve this recipe, or simply save the leftover filling in the freezer for up to 3 months. I like to keep some on hand for if I need a quick fix or to give someone a special treat.

Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 1 Tart
  • Calories: 96
  • Sugar: 10.9
  • Fat: 3.2
  • Carbohydrates: 16.2
  • Protein: 1.5

Keywords: Breakfast, Dessert, Brunch, Custard, Tarts, Filo Dough, Phyllo Dough, Pastry

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Hi! I'm Sydney,

nice to meet you!

I left a marketing career in Hollywood to go to the Culinary Institute of America. After a few years of working in restaurants, I am now a private chef and sommelier in the 30a area.




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