The little golden custard pie has become famous in many places around the world and has grown rapidly over the past 10 years. It began to be prepared in the monasteries of Portugal almost three centuries ago, when there was a surplus of egg yolks. Why is “pastel de nata” successful, where is it found and how can it be made at home?

Portugal, its cuisine and a bit of history

In the Middle Ages, the Portuguese consumed wheat and rye bread, fish, game, cereals, vegetables, fruits, honey, olive oil and wine.

Portugal has a cuisine that captured many colonies after sailors reached various remote areas starting in the 15th century.

Spices and rice were brought from Southeast Asia, tea from the East, corn from America, and hot piri-piri pepper from Angola. It’s full of seafood, and the most famous Portuguese dish is bacalhau: salted and dried cod.

The Portuguese are very fond of sweets, and this tradition originated in the Middle Ages, when the Arabs brought sugar cane, hazelnuts and fruits to the diet of the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula. It is also believed that the Arabs started the tradition that many candies are golden in color (due to egg yolks).

Sugar, egg yolks, hazelnuts, cinnamon, oranges and lemons are the main ingredients combined in many tarts, pies, pies, pâtés and cakes.

Egg custard is present in many types of fillings, and yolks are sometimes glazed.

How pastel de nata was born

Three or four centuries ago, the Catholic monasteries around Lisbon used a lot of egg whites – for finishing fabrics, for brightening port wine and for the unleavened bread used for communion – but the result was a lot of yolks left over.

But the nuns found a way, and when sugar became available, imported from the Caribbean after the 17th century, they started making small cakes with egg yolks. Sweets appeared with names such as “ovos moles”, “queijadas” and “pastéis de nata” (singular pastel de nata), with “nata” meaning cream.

Pastel de nata is a typical Portuguese dessert made of puff pastry and cream with egg yolks and lemon zest, topped with vanilla and sometimes cinnamon.

These pies are said to have been created by nuns from the Mosteira dos Jerónimos (Convent of Jerónimos), one of Lisbon’s most famous monasteries, sometime in the 17th and 18th century, and legend has it that the original recipe for this pie was invented there with egg.

In the first quarter of the 19th century, the nuns sold these pies to a sugar factory to raise money for the monastery. After 1820, many monasteries in Portugal were forced to close, and this happened in 1834 with the one where the pies were made.

The monks would sell the recipe to a sugar factory where they delivered the cakes, and the people at the factory felt it would be good business if they made little candies and sold them. The manager of the sugar factory was named Domingos Rafael Alves.

In 1837, the Fábrica de Pastéis de Belém was opened, a patisserie that still operates today. It’s a well-known spot for fans of these little egg tarts and is just a few minutes’ walk from the monastery where this dessert is said to have been invented. Confectioners say that the original recipe is a secret.

Egg pie and a big leap into the world

As recently as 10 years ago, pastel de nata was not known outside of Portugal, except in areas where the diaspora lived or where there were Lusitanian colonies.

In January 2012, Portugal’s Minister of Economy stated that “pastel de nata” is the country’s emblem and deserves to become a famous export product, a product that is instantly recognizable to almost everyone, like hamburgers and doughnuts.”

Minister Álvaro Santos Pereira 11 years ago advocated the “internationalization” of various Portuguese products that could become successful in the world. After 2015, the dessert with egg custard became known in more and more places on the world map, and this happened also thanks to the financial support of the Portuguese government for the distribution of this product.

For example, Portugal paid for a festival in London and helped Portuguese businesses that wanted to open pastry shops in different countries to sell traditional Portuguese desserts.

Why was the little golden cake so successful? Advertising aside, pie tastes great when it’s fresh and well-cooked. Its success was in line with the trend towards higher-quality desserts that can be eaten “on the run” but look good. This is the kind of dessert that can be eaten in two or three mouthfuls.

It is also important that there was a growing number of tourists who came to Lisbon and tasted the delicious pies, thus learning about them. Some then looked for them in the countries they came from, and more and more people became aware of them. Someone puts cinnamon on the tart, someone eats it very warm.

After 2017, they appeared in supermarkets in several regions of Europe, including Romania a few years ago. They don’t taste fresh in Lisbon, where a cake costs about 1.2-1.5 euros in a simple pastry shop, and can exceed 4 euros in a fancy cafe. You can also find them here in some pastry shops and pastry shops, at a price of 5-6 lei (but can reach 10 lei).

It can also be made at home, and you can read one of the more complicated but tastier recipes here on Adi Hădean’s blog by Aura Crăciun. There are several steps involved in making the dough, which requires a lot of flour to form without sticking, and you also need to make a syrup of sugar, water and cinnamon.

The cream is prepared from three egg yolks, 10 grams of flour, 100 milliliters of milk, 100 grams of powdered sugar, a teaspoon of cinnamon, 80 ml of water and half a teaspoon of vanillin. The cream should be liquid, runny. In the oven, where it is kept for 10 minutes at 290 degrees, it will acquire the necessary consistency.

You can read about the detailed steps to make pastel de nata as well as the various ingredients at allrecipes.com, one of the famous sites for a variety of recipes presented in detail.

They can also be prepared using slightly simpler recipes, where the dough is not prepared at home, but frozen puff pastry bought at the supermarket is used. You can read an example recipe here.

Photo source: Dreamstime.com