Pastéis de Nata

⇐ The Green Book

I found the dough quite tricky to handle. Eventually, using a lot of flour on the work surface, and reforming and rolling out again I managed to roll it out. Might be better to start with a little more flour

These quantities make about 24. Both the pastry and the custard can be frozen though

Ingredients

for the pasteis de nata dough

270g all-purpose flour plus more for the work surface - I found I needed more, maybe 300g

¼ teaspoon sea salt

200 ml cold water

225 g unsalted butter room temperature, stirred until smooth

for the custard

30 g flour

300 ml milk divided (60ml/240ml)

260 g granulated sugar

1 cinnamon stick

160 ml water

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

6 large egg yolks whisked

for the garnish

icing sugar

cinnamon

Method

1. make the pastéis dough.
   1. In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix the flour, salt and water to make a soft dough, about 30 seconds. It will be quite soft and difficult to handle. Place on a well floured surface and form into a 15x15cm square. Cover with cling film and allow to rest for 15 minutes.
   2. Roll out the dough thinly to make a square 45x45cm (according to recipe - I did the length of my rolling pin, a bit less than 40cm). Use a pastry scraper to stop it sticking. I found this quite tricky.
   3. Brush off any excess flour and trim edges to make square. The butter needs to be quite soft. With ⅓ of the butter, dot ⅔ of the pastry square with butter then spread it evenly over the ⅔ with a palette knife. Fold the unbuttered ⅓ over the middle ⅓, brush off excess flour, and fold remaining ⅓ over.
   4. Repeat, roll it out to a square again and butter with another ⅓ and fold.
   5. Roll out again. Butter the whole surface with the remaining butter. Roll the pastry to a sausage, brushing off excess flour as you go. Cut the sausage into 2 pieces, wrap each in cling film and refrigerate for at leats 2 hours or overnight.
2. make the custard.
   1. In a medium bowl whisk the flour with 60ml of milk till smooth. Bring the sugar, water and cinnamon stick to a boil and heat, without stirring, till 104℃ and remove from heat.
   2. Meanwhile, in another pan scald the remaining milk and whisk into the flour/milk paste. Remove the cinnamon stick from the syrup and pour the syrup into the milk. Add the vanilla to the milk mixture and stir for a minute or so while the mixture cools a little.
   3. While the milk mixture if hot (but not above 75℃) whisk in the eggs to make a custard. Strain and allow to cool, covered with cling film. The custard will be thin - but that is how it should be.
3. make the pastries.
   1. Lightly grease a (ideally non-stick) 12-cup muffin tin - the cups want to be approx 5cm diameter by 1.5cm depth. On a lightly floured surface, roll a piece of pastry to be a log about 2.5cm in diameter and trim ends. Divide into 12 equal disks. Place a disk, cut side down, in each of the cups on the muffin tray. Leave for a few minutes to allow the pastry to soften
   2. Preheat the oven as high as it will go - e.g. 290℃. With a bowl of water to hand, to moisten the fingers, with each disk of pastry push down and spread out up the sides. The pastry should be thinner at the bottom than the sides and form a bit of a lip above the tin. Fill the pastries with custard. The recipe says about ¾ full, but I found that the custard shrinks a bit so especially if you can fill the shells in the oven, e.g. if you have slide ut rails, then fill a little more. Bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown and starting to caramelise. Remove from oven, allow to cool slightly and transfer to cooling rack. Optionally garnish with a little icing sugar and powdered cinnamon - or leave au naturel.

Leite's Culinaria https://leitesculinaria.com/7759/recipes-pasteis-de-nata.html

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