Portuguese Custard Tarts

I have been hankering for Portuguese custard tarts for about nine years now. For two years after the Portuguese bakery on Robson Street, Vancouver, closed down, and for the seven years since then, while we've been back in New Zealand. I think about them a lot. Every time I'm in a bakery. Every time I walk past a bakery. In fact, when I walk past a vacant retail space I often think out loud, "This would be an excellent place for a Portuguese bakery."

Why on earth didn't I just get a recipe and make some? Very good question, and one I asked myself yesterday when I was having yet another Portuguese custard tart daydream. Why on earth? The most likely deep dark answer is that I didn't believe I could make them. The ones I remember were custard tart perfection, and perfection is scary.

But like many of life's little obstacles, the trick is to get over myself and make some damned custard tarts. And here's how it went. I started with Google, because that's just where I usually start these days. The following recipe was quoted on several websites and blogs, but it originally belonged to Bill Granger, so thank you Bill.

RIDICULOUSLY SIMPLE AND GLORIOUS CUSTARD

Why oh why have I been afraid of making custard from scratch? I have imagined all sorts of kitchen bogeymen waiting to jump out and wreck the custard. Lumps, bits burning on the bottom of the pot, double boilers boiling over, bain maries sloshing around in the oven. But like many fears, these ones were just imaginary. Making custard from scratch is an absolute breeze, and I highly recommend it if you're in need of some kitchen therapy.

You'll need

• 115gm /4 oz caster sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 tbs cornflour (white silky cornflour, not yellow cornmeal flour)
• 400ml milk. (You can use cream or a combination of milk and cream, but the custard is luscious with regular milk, and I read that even skim milk works, but we don't do skim milk in this house!)
• a modest shaving of orange zest (my addition, because I remember a hint of orange in the originals)

How to
Whisk together the sugar, egg yolks and cornflour.

When they're well combined, slowly add the milk and keep whisking until frothy and the sugar is mostly dissolved.

Pour your frothy custard-to-be into a heavy bottom pot and slowly slowly bring to a boil, stirring a lot. I suppose if the bogeymen are going to attack, this might be when they'd do it. So give the custard a good even tempered stir over a medium to low heat, until it rewards you by thickening up and yellowing up.

(I have one wooden spoon that's only used for sweet things. There's nothing worse that tasting last night's garlicy pasta sauce in your hot chocolate... or your custard.)

When the custard starts to boil, take it off the heat.

Pour it back into the mixing bowl and press some glad wrap onto the surface. This stops a skin forming on the top. Leave it alone to cool down. I added orange zest once it was cool.

RIDICULOUSLY SIMPLE PASTRY
Scandalous I know, but I don't make pastry these days. I buy it in sheets and keep it in the freezer. So that's the confession part over! Imagine my joy when I read "one sheet of store bought puff pastry" on the recipe list.
But check out the rolling process, which was new to me, and far more interesting to photograph than a flat slab of beige stuff.

Roll the pastry sheet up tight, slice into 12 pieces, stand roll-ups on their ends, dust with flour and roll out into thin circles.

Pop the pastry circles into a buttered muffin tin.

Fill the pastry with custard. Pop into the oven, 200 for 20 - 25 minutes.

These tarts are supposed to be slightly scorched. Honest. I even moved them higher up in the oven for the last 5 minutes to get the burnt bits.
Cool in the tray for five minutes, then move to a cooling rack.

Serve on cute plates, and try not to eat more than three in one sitting. Exercising restraint was definitely harder than making these tarts.
A word about the original custard tarts

The custard tarts from the Robson Street Portuguese bakery were our Sunday night neighbourhood dinner party staple. It didn't matter who was hosting dinner, you could pretty much guarantee they'd serve custard tarts for dessert. They were the perfect end to the Sunday night dinner ritual. Soft, sweet, cool with a tiny bit of crunch and chew to the pastry. I remember a hint of orange in them, and the toffee flavour of the scorched bits. They were the right size too. Small, but at least three mouthfuls. $1.20 each. Perfect.

It was a very sad day when we discovered that bakery had closed down. And it's also pretty sad that I let the fear of making custard get the better of me for all those years. But it's over now. Biting into one of these tarts was exactly like biting into one of the originals. I will be making many many more. Who knows, I might even open up a Portuguese bakery one day.