Pastry
Pastéis de Nata (Portuguese Custard Tarts)
Crisp spirals of buttery puff pastry pressed into a muffin tin and filled with a lemon- and cinnamon-scented egg-yolk custard, baked very hot until the tops blister and scorch in dark patches.
- Serves 12
- Hands-on 40 min
- Bake 15–18 min
- Oven as hot as it goes (250°C+)
- Makes 12
- Portuguese
Method
For the syrup, put the sugar (200 g), 120 ml water, the cinnamon stick (1) and lemon peel (1 lemon) in a small pan. Heat gently to dissolve the sugar, then boil for 3 minutes without stirring. Set aside.
For the custard, whisk the flour (30 g) with 60 ml of the milk (350 ml) to a smooth paste. Bring the rest of the milk to the boil, then whisk it into the paste. Return to the pan and cook, whisking, for 1–2 minutes, until thickened.
Remove the cinnamon and lemon from the syrup and whisk the syrup into the milk mixture in a thin stream. Leave to cool for 10 minutes, then whisk in the egg yolks (6 egg yolks) and vanilla (½ tsp). Strain into a jug.
Heat the oven to its highest setting, at least 250°C (fan 230°C, gas 9), with a shelf near the top. Brush a 12-hole muffin tin with the butter (15 g).
Unroll the pastry (325 g), brush lightly with water and roll up tightly from a short end into a log. Trim the ends and cut into 12 slices about 2 cm thick.
Stand a slice, cut side up, in each hole. Dip your thumbs in cold water and press the centre down and the sides up until the pastry comes just above the rim of the tin and is thin at the base.
Fill each case three-quarters full with custard. Bake for 15–18 minutes, until the pastry is crisp and golden and the custard puffed with dark scorched patches. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then on a rack. Dust with cinnamon and icing sugar (a little) to serve.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
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Chef’s notes
- The dark patches are the point: bake as hot as your oven will go. If the pastry browns before the tops colour, finish under a hot grill for a minute.
- The custard will look runny going in. It sets as it bakes and firms further as it cools.
- Rolling the pastry into a spiral gives the layered, crisp case of the Lisbon originals. Keep the slices cold so they do not stick.
- Use the six spare egg whites for meringues or a pavlova.
From the monks of Belém
Pastéis de nata grew out of the pastéis de Belém made by the monks of the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém, Lisbon. Convents and monasteries used large quantities of egg whites to starch clothes, and the leftover yolks went into cakes and pastries, which is why Portugal has so many egg-yolk sweets.
After the Liberal Revolution of 1820 and the dissolution of the religious orders, the monks sold their pastries at a nearby sugar refinery. The monastery closed in 1834 and the recipe passed to the refinery, whose owners opened the Fábrica de Pastéis de Belém in 1837. The bakery says it still makes the tarts every day by hand from that secret recipe, a short walk from the monastery; its descendants still own it.
Sources for these notes
For the history above.
How this recipe was developed
We compared Chef John’s Portuguese custard tarts on Allrecipes with Lucio Rocha’s pastel de nata on BBC Food and Nuno Mendes’s pastéis de nata on BBC Good Food.
- Sugar syrup custard. Chef John (Allrecipes, 4.8/5 from 182 ratings) makes a sugar syrup with a cinnamon stick and lemon peel and whisks it into a flour-thickened milk base before adding 6 egg yolks; we follow that method.
- Quantities. Lucio Rocha (BBC Food, 4.1/5 from 16 ratings) uses 300 ml full-fat milk, 6 egg yolks and 220 g caster sugar with cinnamon, lemon peel and vanilla for 12; our quantities are close to his.
- Bought puff pastry. All three make their own laminated pastry. We use ready-rolled puff rolled into a spiral, which gives the same layered case for much less work.
- Very hot oven. All three bake at the highest temperature the oven will reach for the scorched tops.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 1 November 2026):
- Allrecipes (John Mitzewich (Chef John)): Portuguese Custard Tarts (Pasteis de Nata) (4.8/5, 182 ratings)
- BBC Food (Lucio Rocha): Pastel de nata (4.1/5, 16 ratings)
- BBC Good Food (Nuno Mendes): Portuguese custard tarts (Pastéis de nata) (3.25/5, 30 ratings)
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.