Pastéis de Nata

Pastéis de Nata (with a Pasta Maker)

Pastéis de Nata (with a Pasta Maker)
Yield: 12
Author:

Here’s my recipe and tutorial for one of my favourite treats - pastéis de nata (AKA Portugese Egg Tarts). My key to getting the super flaky layers is using a pasta maker!

Ingredients

Tart Shells
Custard Filling

Instructions

Making the dough
  1. In a large mixing bowl, add flour, salt, butter and cold water. Mix by hand until you get a shaggy dough.
  2. Then transfer this dough to a light floured surface and knead until you get a smooth ball that no longer sticks to your hands.
  3. Then wrap this in plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge for an hour.
Making the custard filling
  1. (See Note 1) In a large bowl, mix together the all purpose flour and 1/4 cup of milk until you get a smooth paste.
  2. Then whisk in 1 cup of hot milk.
  3. In a saucepan, combine water, sugar, cinnamon stick and lemon peels and heat that over the stove until it reaches 212°F or 100° C.
  4. Take off the heat and remove the cinnamon stick and lemon peels.
  5. Then whisk this hot sugar mixture into your flour-milk mixture until combined and set that aside to cool down until it’s warm to the touch.
  6. Then into the cooled down mixture you’ll whisk in your 6 egg yolks to produce the custard filling (this will seem quite liquidy (don’t worry, that’s expected).
  7. Now strain this mixture through a sieve and then cover it with a plastic wrap (plastic wrap should touch the surface of the mixture) and leave it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.
Creating the tart shell layers
  1. Set up your pasta maker on your counter and lightly flour the counter.
  2. Take the dough out of the fridge and split in half, wrapping 1 half in plastic wrap while you work on the other half.
  3. Using the palm of your hands, shape the dough into a rectangular shape (thin enough to feed through your pasta maker).
  4. Now repeatedly feed this through the pasta maker, changing the setting so it’s a notch thinner each time. Keep going until you get to the lowest/thinnest setting.
  5. You might need to lightly coat the sides of the dough with flour to ensure it feeds through the machine with ease.
  6. Once your dough is rolled to the thinnest sheet possible, lay it in front of you and grab the ends and stretch it out horizontally out to get it even thinner.
  7. Then you’re going to start spreading a thin even layer of softened butter onto the sheet.
  8. Now from one of the ends, you’ll start rolling it into a log, making sure to roll it as tightly as possible for maximum amount of layers.
  9. Place this log under a damp towel or under plastic wrap to keep it from drying out.
  10. Repeat steps 3-7 with the other half of the dough and stop after it’s rolled out into 1 sheet and coated with a layer of butter.
  11. Now you’ll take the first log you created and add it to the base of this new sheet you created and you’ll roll the new sheet around the log you created, essentially creating a ‘mega log’ (watch the above video if you need a visual demonstration).
  12. Wrap this log in plastic wrap and rest for 1-2 hours in the fridge.
Assembling and filling the tart shells
  1. Take the log out of the fridge and cut it into 12 even slices.
  2. Preheat your oven to 550°F or 288°C.
  3. Take the round slice and place it in the center of the tart tin, then using your fingers, start flattening and molding the dough so that it fills the entire tin.
  4. Once your tins are filled with the shells, place them on a baking tray (I recommend lining the tray with foil in case there’s any spillage).
  5. Take the custard mixture out of the fridge and fill the tins 75-80% full.
  6. Place the tarts in your preheated oven and bake for 8-10 minutes. Keep a close eye on them to make sure the shells don’t burn.
  7. Once you take them out of the oven, let them cool slightly and dust with powdered sugar and cinnamon and enjoy warm!

Notes

  1. If you are using traditional egg tart shells (which are quite shallow), you may find that you'll only need 50% of the custard mixture. If you're using muffin tins or deeper tart shells, you'll likely need all of the filling in this recipe. So feel free to adjust accordingly.


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