Portuguese custard tarts
A weeknight-friendly Portuguese dessert built around plain flour, icing sugar and puff pastry — roughly 130 minutes start to finish, and rated involved to make. Below: the ingredients split into pantry staples and a quick shopping list, a built-in serving scaler, and the method in 21 steps.
You'll mainly reach for oven and pan. At involved difficulty across 21 steps, it's worth setting aside proper time for. As written, it's meat-free.
What you'll need
Shopping list (1)
Pantry staples (you likely have these)
🔁 Unit converter
How to make it
- Roll the pastry
- Mix the flour and icing sugar, and use this to dust the work surface. Roll the pastry out to make a 45 x 30cm rectangle. Roll up lengthways to create a long sausage shape.
- Cutting pastry into rounds
- Cut the pastry into 24 wheels, about 1-2cm thick.
- Roll out each pastry portion
- Roll each wheel lightly with the rolling pin to fit 2 x 12-hole non-stick fairy cake tins.
- Press pastry into the tin
- Press the pastry circles into the tins and mould into the tins to make thin cases. Chill until needed.
- Make the infused syrup
- Heat the oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7.
- Make a sugar syrup by bringing the sugar, 200ml water, lemon zest and cinnamon stick to the boil.
- Reduce until syrupy, allow to cool, then remove the cinnamon and lemon.
- Whisk the eggs, egg yolks and cornflour until smooth in another large pan.
- Making custard
- Heat the milk and vanilla pod seeds in a separate pan until just below the boil. Gradually pour the hot milk over the eggs and cornflour, then cook on a low heat, continually whisking.
- Add syrup to custard
- Add the cooled sugar syrup to the custard and whisk until thickened slightly.
- Pour custard into the tins
- Pour the custard through a sieve. Pour into the pastry cases and bake for 15 minutes until the pastry is golden and the custard has darkened.
- cool and dust with icing sugar
- Cool completely in the tins then sift over icing sugar and ground cinnamon to serve.
You'll use: Oven · Pan · Saucepan · Whisk
Watch how it's made
Hosted on YouTube — pressing play loads content from YouTube.
Ingredient substitutions
- Lemon
- lime · 1 tbsp white wine vinegar per lemon
- Eggs
- ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce (baking) · 1 tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp water per egg
- Milk
- any unsweetened plant milk · ½ cup evaporated milk + ½ cup water
What to serve with Portuguese custard tarts
Tips & common questions
How long does Portuguese custard tarts take to make?
About 130 minutes from start to finish — an estimate based on the 21 steps and 12 ingredients. Times vary with your kitchen and how much prep you do ahead.
What can I use instead of lemon?
Try lime. See the substitutions section above for more swaps.
Can I scale this recipe up or down?
Yes — use the servings control above the ingredients and every quantity rescales automatically (fractions included). Cooking times stay roughly the same; very large batches may need a little longer.
Is Portuguese custard tarts vegetarian?
Its ingredients contain no meat or fish, so it's suitable for vegetarians. Check any cheeses for animal rennet if that matters to you.
Related recipes
Recipe data for Portuguese custard tarts via TheMealDB (open database). ▶ Video. Original source. Consomee adds the scaler, ingredient tools, timing and structure — how we source recipes.