Where to find the best pastel de nata, and how to bake your own
The custard tart that conquered the world was born in a Lisbon monastery. Here is where to eat it, and how to make it at home.
Every Portuguese café sells pastéis de nata, but not all of them are equal. A great one has a pastry that shatters, a custard that wobbles and a top burnt in spots, like a crème brûlée.
A recipe from a monastery
The monks of the Jerónimos monastery in Belém used egg whites to starch their habits, and the yolks to bake. When the monasteries closed in 1834, the recipe was sold to a sugar refinery next door, which still bakes it today.
Bake your own
The secret is the dough, rolled into a log and cut into discs that you press into the tins with a wet thumb, and an oven as hot as it goes. Our hosts at Tasca Lab teach it in two hours, and you leave with a dozen.
Photo: Andy Li (CC0), Wikimedia Commons
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