Of the many baking projects I've launched in the last ten years, only one has caused serious weight gain, burns and an absolute lack of fear of puff pastry. Portuguese custard tarts, known as pastéis de nata (cream pastries) or pastéis de Belém (Belém pastries) do something magical to many eaters. They are an enchanting combination of lightly crisp pastry layers and a very, very pleasant egg custard filling. And, of course, they're a little tricky to make at home.

Once I've started one of my projects I rarely drop the bone until I've exhausted most avenues. If I remember rightly, it took eighteen batches of tarts to develop the recipe which was published in The Age newspaper back in 2004. At the time there were no reliable recipes online or in any of the books I could find or friends could source, either in English or Portuguese. It's still the case that few published recipes are the real thing. Why? Because rather than admit failure, too many cookbook writers prefer to pretend they'll fulfill your dreams. If it fails, you'll probably assume you made a mistake.

Look through your cookbooks and magazine cuttings for a recipe for these tarts. A surprising number omit to show a picture of the final product or they make sure they dust the tarts so liberally with icing sugar and cinnamon that you've got no chance of seeing what happened to the custard. It's called cheating.

The greatest examples of Portuguese custard tarts have frightening burnt spots on the surface. That charring might at first seem unappetising, but it adds a lovely extra dimension to the flavour. For many home cooks, those spots are what seem to be the unattainable, essential marks of beauty. It is very difficult to get them at home, and it's wise to deprioritise such freckles and go for luscious interiors and texture instead.

A commercial kitchen has hot ovens. HOT. Without setting fire to your kitchen, you can't get there at home. But with luck and some experimenting, you might come fairly close to the commercial product.

A bit like my beloved macarons, it's rare to find a bakery in Australia that can make them properly. When I was writing the original article, I travelled near and far in Melbourne, hunting down establishments producing good tarts. After far too many wild goose chases, it transpired that, with the exception of one rural bakery producing embarrassing garbage, every café and restaurant in Melbourne was sourcing their tarts from a single bakery in Burwood, the Magical Munch Bar. I've seen no evidence that anything has changed in the years since. This producer is reasonably good, better on some days than other. For better tarts, you have to head to Sydney, where Fernandes Patisserie in Dulwich Hill and, apparently, La Patisserie and Sweet Belem in Petersham all make great Portuguese cakes and tarts.

Ironically, a photo of my tarts which for some reason doesn't appear on my original newspaper article online is visible (without permission) on a piece about Portuguese tarts in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Here's some of what I wrote in 2004:

Whether at a highway roadhouse, a dusty village café, or an upmarket town eatery, the tarts are everywhere in Portugal. They are as ubiquitous as lamingtons (and suffer similar quality assurance issues), but unlike lamingtons, there is one place – just one – which everyone knows serves the best in the land. In the waterside Lisbon suburb of Belém, a cavernous blue-tiled pastry-and-coffee house serves thousands upon thousands of custard tarts every day. And the tarts here, at the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém, even have a special name: pastéis de Belém. Lisboetas (residents of Lisbon) and tourists alike flock to the Confeitaria, buying calorifically frightening numbers of tarts, neatly packaged in nifty cardboard tubes with little sachets of icing sugar and cinnamon. The impatient then rush to a bench in the nearby park, usually ignoring the grand scenery (the Jerónimos Monastery, and the Belém Cultural Centre), in order to devour the tarts at their peak of freshness, warm and soft. More prim visitors may actually dine at the Confeitaria, taking a coffee with their repast.

The custard tarts are as prominent a part of Portugal's national identity as meat pies are for Aussies, except that Australians don't generally write about, wax lyrical about, meat pies. But search the web for pastéis de nata, and you find an inordinate number of teenage bloggers extolling the virtues of these tarts, recounting their most recent tasting, reporting on their visit to the Confeitaria.

Pasteís de nata are a pain to make without good guidance, for two reasons: Firstly, most recipes in English are poor. Secondly, some recipes in Portuguese are pretty useless too. Thirdly, they are a maddening combination of two substances which need entirely disparate treatment – custard likes low temperatures, while puff pastry likes high temperatures. Fourthly, home ovens rarely reach the ideal temperature. Ok, so that was four reasons, not two, but I didn't want to scare you.

Below is my slightly revised recipe. You'll also find a good recipe, though slightly different, over at Leite's Culinaria. We wrote our respective articles at about the same time, as enthusiasm for these tarts reached its peak.

Please remember that this material is copyright. If you want to use any part of it (beyond a very short quote), please contact me for permission.

RECIPE — Pastéis de nata [UPDATED]

makes 10

As puff pastry requires high heat for 10-20 minutes, and custard curdles at high heat after just a few minutes, it is necessary to use thin puff pastry so that it cooks as quickly as possible. The custard is stablised slightly by adding some flour to the mixture, but is still fairly sensitive. That's why it's hard to achieve the burnt spots without curdling the custard.

Make the pastry first, up to a day ahead. Can't be bothered? Buy a reallllllly good quality puff pastry instead, though the result will be inferior. Follow the custard instructions carefully.

The ideal cooking temperature is probably 300-350C. Many ovens set to their maximum temperature will come close to this on the top shelf, but you need to know your oven. Convection (fan-forced) ovens generally cook hotter than standard ovens. Preheat your oven for at least 30 minutes.

You need standard size muffin pans (or my wonderful little tart pans which are 3cm deep and 7cm wide at the rim). Non-stick pans are probably unsuitable, as most of the coatings only tolerate temperatures up to 230-250C.

If you want to make sure you get the hang of the cooking time in your oven, start by cooking just two or three tarts. Taste them once they've cooled a little (burns!). Your main goal is to cook the pastry well. I used to recommend prioritising the custard, but undercooked pastry just makes the tart less impressive. So it's better to accept that your custard might curdle (it'll taste a bit like bread and butter pudding), but if you can get the pastry cooked in under about 12 mins, you should have the best of both worlds.

Note that during cooking the custard will rise up and bubble and look distinctly unpromising.

Pastry
This is about enough pastry for ten shells.

70g plain flour
40-50ml cold water
1/4 tsp salt
55g butter

• Make a puff pastry using the above ingredients. Instructions for making puff pastry (not 'rough puff' or 'flaky') can be found in most basic cookery books.
• For this recipe, the pastry should be folded and rolled at least three times, but resting time between phases is less important.
• If the pastry starts getting warm to the touch, it's time to refrigerate it for a while.
• When finished, roll out the pastry to a 20cm x 10cm rectangle, 4-5mm thick. Then roll up the pastry into a log shape, like a rug or swiss-roll, with the long edges forming the ends of the log. The log will be 4-5cm in diameter.
• Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for half an hour.

At this point, make the custard.

Custard
This is enough custard for 10-14 tarts, depending on the size of your pans.

22g plain flour (not more)
160g sugar
3 egg yolks
1 egg
300ml milk
approx 2cm x 4cm shaving of lemon rind

pure icing sugar and ground cinnamon, for sprinkling

• Sift the flour and sugar together into a bowl.
• Lightly beat together the egg yolks and whole egg.
• Put the milk, lemon rind in a saucepan and gradually bring to the boil. Remove the lemon rind.
• Pour half of the boiling milk over the flour and sugar and stir until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Add this mixture to the remaining milk.
• Pour a few spoonfuls of the hot mixture onto the beaten egg and stir well. Then pour the egg into the flour and sugar mixture, stirring constantly until completely mixed. This is the finished custard, and should not be cooked further (unlike more familiar custard types).
• Let the custard cool in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 300C or the maximum setting if your oven can't heat that high.

• Remove the pastry from the fridge and with a sharp knife, cut 10 discs from the log, about 1cm thick. Some recipes say that you should now just press the disc into the pan, and up the sides, but this can be tricky, so I recommend first gently flattening the disc with a rolling pin to increase its diameter.
• Press the disc into its pan, starting in the middle of the base, and working outwards, up the sides. The pastry will be thin, especially on the bottom.
• Chill the pans briefly if the pastry has become too warm.
• Place the pastry cases on a baking sheet or tray. If you find your pastry doesn't cook fast enough, using an aluminium tray may help.
• Pour the custard into the pastry cases, leaving about a centimetre between the custard and the rim of the pastry.
• Put the tray in the oven. Use the middle shelf for the first batch, and adjust if necessary for later batches. Bake for 8-12 minutes. If the pastry edges are browning very well then the tarts are ready. If you get brown spots on the custard, congratulations! (But don't bank on it.)
• Once you've removed the tarts from the oven, let them cool for a few minutes, then remove them from their pans, and place them on a rack to cool. Try to resist the temptation to eat them straight away, as they are at their best when just warm.
• Before eating, sprinkle the tarts with the icing sugar and cinnamon. Or not.

Please remember that this material is copyright. If you want to use any part of it (beyond a very short quote), please contact me for permission.

This batch didn't want to get any spots

This batch did get some spots. The pastry looks less good because the pans had been lined two days earlier, so the edges had dried a little before cooking.

And finally…

One of my goals after starting Syrup & Tang was to revisit these tarts and improve my recipe. So much time had passed and my baking skills had improved. As life would have it, with a different oven and different trays, I learnt more about baking in one or two further tests for writing this article. Happily, the recipe needed very few tweaks (mostly in technique).

Now all I need is a café pingado and a view of Lisbon…

For final entertainment, here's a really sweet video on how to make pastéis de nata. Unfortunately they're not quite the Portuguese thing, but this Brazilian take on them. The video is 8 mins long but is quite charming.

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