To start, I bring you a very famous recipe in Portugal, the most typical sweet of Portugal, “Pastéis de Nata”.

I made this recipe for the first time and it went very well. To repeat for sure!

Is not difficult at first, and your kitchen will be a mess in the end, but I but it's worth it!

So let's get to work and in the end I want to see your results!

Ingredients (for 10-12 units)

• 250 gr of whole milk
• 150 gr of sugar
• 75 ml of water
• 30 gr of flour
• 4 egg yolk
• 1 or 2 cinnamon sticks
• 3 or 4 strips of lemon peel (sicilian lemon)
• About 300 gr of puff pastry (You can buy this frozen puff pastry in the supermarket – I used 4 plates)

Instructions

First we need to prepare this sugar syrup:

1.       Pour the sugar and the water into a clean saucepan

2.       Stir the sugar and water until most of the sugar has dissolved (don’t stir any more than this) and put over a low heat

3.       When starting to bubble leave it for 3 more minutes, then turn of the heat and put it aside

Time to do the milk cream:

1.    Dissolve the flour with a little cold milk and stir very well until it becomes a paste / cream without lumps

2.    Bring the remaining milk with the cinnamon and lemon peel (without the white part) to the heat. In the moment it begins to boil, very slowly add the hot milk to the mixture of flour and put it all again in the saucepan, always stirring until thickening. Then put it aside

3rd step – Make the Pastel de Nata cream:

1- Add the syrup to the milk cream, always stirring to avoid lumps

2-    Allow it to cool down for about 10 minutes and mix a little of this cream into the yolks to avoid a temperature shock

3- Then add the rest and stir well to incorporate the egg yolks into the cream

4- Pass the cream through a sieve to remove the cinnamon stick, lemon and some lumps that may have formed

For the puff pastry:

1- Stretch the puff pastry just a little bit. Sprinkle it with a bit of water, wrap it in a roll and cut it in pieces of 2 to 3 cm, depending on the size of your molds

2- Put the pieces standing in the molds (see picture) and spread it on the molds with the help of the humid thumb to avoid grasping. Take it to the fridge for about 10 minutes

To cook:

1-  Fill about ¾ of the molds with the cream and bake it in the preheated oven at 250ºC (or as much as your oven reaches) for about 10-12 minutes

NOTE:  It is important that the oven is heated for about 20 minutes before placing the pastries

The cakes should be golden crunchy and creamy with roasted filling on the surface. Adjust the cooking time according to your oven and the size of the dishes. All ovens are different so be careful not to bake it too much. Most likel, the cakes will show different patterns of black spots on the surface

If you don´t have the typical forms of Pastel de Nata, it’s possible to use muffin’s, pie’s or disposable aluminum forms