How to make Portuguese egg custard tarts

Pasteis de nata might be the world’s greatest pastry. These tiny, flaky, sweet Portuguese egg custard tarts date back to before the 18th century.

Hi, I’m Chef George Mendes. I’m from Viranda Restaurant in Soho. And today I’m going to show you how to make paste dinata, which are Portuguese egg custard tarts that were first made by nuns and monks in the 19th century. So, our simple syrup is ready and our milk is hot as well. Start with our flour and make a little slurry out of the rest of the milk. This is a really important step because if you were just add flour all at one time to all the milk, you end up with a lot of clumps. And now I’m going to add the warm milk. So it is a very simple recipe, but it remains super important to be focused on every little step because all the little details plays an integral part on the final product. So now I’m going to separate my eggs. So I have my egg yolks. Place them in this large bowl. Going to slowly add the warm milk. Again, it’s a very important step that I use a spatula to clean up the bowl that has all the flour cuz a little bit might stick to the bottom. I’m going to add the simple syrup that’s infused with the cinnamon. We are now going to fill the molds with our custard filling. Go just under the very top edge. They while they’re cooking, they actually sule. You be really careful that you don’t overfill them or else they will go over. Carefully place these in the oven. Our oven is at 500° F and we’re going to cook them about 7 to 10 minutes. We’ll peek we’ll peek into the oven around 7 minutes, see how they’re doing. So, our egg tarts are out of the oven now. We’re going to let them cool for about 5 minutes so we can remove them from the molds. Dust them with cinnamon powder. I think our nuns would be pretty damn happy. So, I’m going to go ahead and try one of these guys. They’re just Oh, wow. So delicious. Nice and crispy. The inside’s a nice custard. They’re not too sweet. They’re perfect.