I just made my first batch of Pastel de Nata and I wanted to share how because they were amazing! Having recently returned from a trip to Porto, I was keep to try this recipe as, despite being vegan, we had the opportunity to try them more than once. We've found that of all of the places we've been, Portugal (Lisbon/Porto) is the best by far for catering for vegans. I even found a café/grocery store with lots of my Village Greens favourites!
Pastel de Nata is a delicious Portuguese pastry with a custard filling and a flaky crust, with added cinnamon. It was originally created by monks in a Lisbon monastery in the 18th Century.
As this is traditionally made with egg custard I had to find a recipe to try that was plant based and I found a great one by Lazy Cat Kitchen. Follow the link for the original recipe: Vegan Portuguese custard tarts - Lazy Cat Kitchen
The recipe I chose uses maple syrup as a sweetener and any additional sugar is optional. They were plenty sweet enough for us and, whilst not looking quite as fancy as the ones we saw, were just as yummy. The filling was as creamy, with that familiar vanilla flavour, enhanced by the cinnamon. We loved them!
This recipe made 12 pastel de nata using a muffin tin.
INGREDIENTS
120-150 ml maple syrup
125g raw cashews soaked in boiling water for 30 mins
200g silken tofu
Zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla extract
a few pinches of turmeric
2 tsp cornflour dissolved in 1 tsp water
320g puff pastry (most are accidentally vegan)
Oil, to grease the baking tin
Ground cinnamon mixed icing sugar ration 1:2
METHOD
1 Place 120 ml of maple syrup and the drained cashews in a blender and blend till smooth.
2 Add the remaining ingredients except the cornflour and process again until smooth.
3 Taste the custard at this point and add the rest of the maple syrup if needed. If not add 30ml of plant milk instead.
4 Add the turmeric but not too much. The original recipe suggests no more than 1/8 tsp. Blend again.
5 Put the mixture in a medium pan and heat it gently on the stove, whisking constantly. Add the cornflour/water mixture slowly whilst mixing to prevent lumps.
6 Allow the mixture to come to a gentle boil and simmer, stirring the entire time, just until it thickens.
7 Take the pan off the heat and let it cool down completely.
8 Heat up the oven to 200° C and grease a 12 hole muffin tin with a small amount of oil.
9 Unroll the sheet of puff pastry (usually it needs to have been taken out of the fridge 10 minutes prior)
10 Remove the piece of grease-proof paper and lay the sheet on top.
11 Sprinkle cinnamon and, if wanted, icing sugar across the sheet. Then tightly and neatly roll it back up.
12 Measure the length of the roll and cut it into 12 equal segments.
13 Dust the working surface with a little bit of flour. Place the first cut piece flat on the surface and flatten it into a circle, around 2 or 3 mm thick. (This seems very thin but I may try even thinner next time as it does expand in the oven.
14 Place the circle of pastry over the muffin hole and push it into the hole. Cut the excess pastry off with a sharp knife. I did this after filling but it doesn't matter when it is done.
15 Fill the pastry with the custard. It will seem like there isn't enough but there should be a gap of around 1cm between the top of the custard and the top of the pastry.
16 Continue to fill the remaining 11 holes in the tray.
17 Bake for around 15 mins or until the filling is barely set and the pastry is puffed up and golden.
18 Allow the tarts to cool down before removing them from the tin.
19 If you have a chef’s torch (which I don't), you can blowtorch the top to create that burnt effect that the original Pastel de Nata have.
20 I sprinkled the tarts with a little bit of icing sugar. You can also sprinkle with cinnamon.
I'll be making these again when we want to think about the amazing trip that we had in beautiful Porto. Improvements I could make are mainly to the pastry. I would include much more cinnamon in the pastry and maybe roll the pastry a little thinner. I would also try to make the pastry cases neater, although they were still tasty!
I hope that you enjoy them too if you decide make them, Thanks for reading.
Karen x
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