Vegan Portuguese custard tarts
Vegan Portuguese custard tarts
It’s Duncan who you’ve got to thank for this recipe. He was on me to veganise Portuguese custard tarts for a long time, while I was somewhat reluctant. I don’t know why… I guess given how much the traditional recipe relies on dairy and eggs, I just didn’t think the taste would be anything to write home about… Boy, I was so wrong! These puppies are aaaammmaaazing and I don’t make proclamations like this lightly.
Even though my initial hunch that using a mixture of cashews and silken tofu was the best way to replicate the silkiness and richness of a traditional custard filling, I still had to spend a lot of time getting the ratios exactly right and I experimented with different custard consistencies to get this final result. I was getting a bit custard obsessed and kept on tinkering and tinkering, always feeling like I should try again as I can improve on what I’ve got.
Luckily for you, you’ve got Duncan. While I would happily keep on going, he is much more capable of drawing a line under things. He is my voice of reason who often tells me: ‘Ania, you’ve done enough. Everybody loves these, please don’t waste the time you could be spending on a new recipe instead!!’ I know he is right. I can be a pain. And I’ve learned never to argue back (or to at least pick my battles) as my perfectionism can certainly get out of hand at times and isn’t doing anyone any good. I mean, let’s face it, a recipe is useless to you unless it’s published, right? Well, it is published now and I hope you’ll make these pronto (or should I say rápido) and will love them as much as we did!
Make a simple custard base by blending the first three ingredients, then transfer the mixture to a pot and thicken in with cornflour slurry over low heat.
Roll out coils of puff pastry on a lightly floured surface until you obtain circles of pastry big enough to line muffin hole moulds completely.
Lay rolled out pastry over a muffin hole mould. Using your fingers, gently line the inside of the muffin hole with the pastry so that it fits snugly.
Fill with thickened custard, then trim excess pastry off using a sharp knife. Bake until the filling is barely set and the pastry is puffed up and golden.
- 120-150 ml / ½ cup + 1-2 more tbsp maple syrup, adjust to taste
- 125 g / 1 scant cup raw cashews, soaked in boiling water for 30 mins
- 200 g / 7 oz silken tofu (I use Clearspring)
- zest of 1 lemon + 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tsp vanilla paste or vanilla extract
- a pinch of ground saffron (or saffron threads) or a few pinches of turmeric
- 2 tsp cornflour / cornstarch dissolved in 1 tsp water
REMAINING INGREDIENTS
- 320 g / 11 oz vegan puff pastry*
- oil, to grease the baking tin
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon mixed with 2 tbsp icing sugar (optional)
- Place 120 ml / ½ cup of maple syrup and drained cashews in a blender. Process until silky smooth (if the mixture is bitsy, keep on processing, it will get smooth eventually even if you have an average blender like mine).
- Add all the remaining ingredients apart from saffron (if using) and cornflour / cornstarch and process until smooth. Sweeten with extra maple syrup to taste, if needed. If you plan on sweetening your pastry (see step 2 of the ASSEMBLY section), this may not be necessary. If you are not using extra maple syrup, add 2 tbsp (30 ml) of plant milk to the blender to ensure that the total amount of liquid ingredients added is 150 ml (½ cup + 2 tbsp).
- If using saffron to colour the mixture, place it in a tiny bit (a teaspoon) of plant milk and let it sit for a few minutes, then add the golden liquid to the mixture. Go easy on the amount as it’s very potent. Turmeric can be added straight into the blender, but again, do not add too much (1/8 tsp is the maximum amount you will be able to get away with without overpowering the mixture).
- Transfer the mixture to a medium pot and warm it up gently on the stove, whisking with a wire whisk the entire time. Slowly trickle in the cornflour / cornstarch dissolved in water and carry on mixing to prevent lumps from forming.
- Allow the mixture to come to a gentle boil and simmer, stirring the entire time, just until it thickens.
- Once thickened, take the pot off the heat and allow it to cool down completely before filling the pastry.
ASSEMBLY
- Heat up the oven to 200° C / 390° F and grease a 12 hole muffin tin with a small amount of oil.
- Unroll the sheet of puff pastry, remove a piece of grease-proof paper and tightly roll it back up. At this point, you may want to sprinkle the unrolled sheet with a mixture of cinnamon and icing sugar to give the pastry itself some sweetness. I personally didn’t do that as I prefer the contrast of unsweetened pastry with a sweet filling.
- Measure the length of the log and cut it into 12 equal segments – my pastry sheet was 23 cm (9″) long so each segment was 1.9 cm (0.75″) thick.
- Dust the working surface with a little bit of all purpose flour. Place the first segment on the working surface, cut side down and gently flatten the coil with a rolling pin into a large, thin circle. Roll the pastry fairly thin (2-3 mm / 0.08-0.1″), it expands a lot during baking.
- Place the circle of pastry over the muffin hole and gently push it into the hole, making sure the pastry fits in snuggly all the way to the edges of the base. Cut the excess pastry off with a sharp knife.
- Fill the pastry with custard, leaving a gap of at least 1 cm / 0.4″ at the end of the pastry – the custard will rise and puff up as it bakes.
- Continue the same way with the remaining 11 pastry segments.
- Place the tray into the hot oven and bake until the filling is barely set and the pastry is puffed up and golden – for me it was 15 minutes, but for you it may be a little less or a little more – all ovens are different.
- Allow the tarts to cool down before removing them from the tin.
- If you have a chef’s torch, sprinkle the tops with icing sugar or brush with maple syrup and blowtorch the tops. If you don’t have a torch, place them under a hot grill / broiler for a few minutes, but watch them like a hawk as they will burn easily.
- Dust them with cinnamon icing sugar before serving if you wish.
Really easy recipe to follow and unbelievably tasty! Being Vegan and GF, it’s so hard to find good treats like this!!
Thank you! x
Coconut cream and 1-2 tbsp melted vegan butter or fragrance free coconut oil will work too, but the tarts may have a hint of coconut flavour. Hope this helps! Ania
I have not tried freezing these but I have frozen another dish with this custard so custard should be fine. A little worried about double-freezing puff pastry - unless you are making it from scratch or not using a frozen one. Hope this helps! Ania
I use Clearspring, which does not classify silken tofu like that so not sure, but firm should work just fine. Hope this helps! Ania
Would you change anything to make a 9" pan custard ?
It's hard to be sure without any testing, but I would probably extend the baking time and if not using puff pastry perhaps decrease the baking temperature a little. I made a similar filling for this crostata recipe so perhaps you could use that as a guide. Hope this helps! Ania
I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed these. With regards to blind baking the pastry, I've made these over dozen times and I did not find that necessary - in fact, traditional pastel de nata do not get blind baked either, as far as I am aware. I suspect that this is something to do with the pastry you've used as it sounds unusual - coconut puff pastry? Is it homemade? My recipe uses conventional shop bought pastry and the baking time specified reflects that. As for the amount of filling, again could it be that your tarts were bigger than mine (I used a standard 12-hole muffin tin for mine)? I am reluctant to change the recipe as I've tested these thoroughly and I also have seen many people make these and no one else raised similar issues. I am glad you enjoyed these and I will keep my ears peeled for similar feedback and will retest if necessary. Ania
Great website, can't wait to try some more of your creations .
Thanks for your comment, I'm glad you enjoyed them! Not sure about your comment about them being like lemon tarts as the custard recipe only calls for 1 tablespoon of lemon juice so wondering if you misread it by any chance? You can of course skip lemon altogether but I find that it adds to the flavour. Ania
I have not tested arrowroot in this recipe so I would recommend to use cornstarch to be on the safe side. They should work the same, but as it is harder to get I tend to use cornstarch more often. Hope that helps and that you'll enjoy these! Ania
I actually wanted to make a trifle with the custard! I’ve made too much custard as I doubled the recipe. Oops. So do you think the custard would freeze okay? I’m a learner so hopefully that isn’t a stupid question!
Wonderful recipe. Very sweet and creamy. Thank you.
I would love to use this recipe but I was wondering if I could use coconut cream instead of cashews? Since they're both a big source of fat?
I think so but I haven't tried myself so you may need to do a test first to ensure you get the right result. While they are both a good source of plant fat, they don't contain exactly the same amount of fat so the recipe may need require some tweaking. Hope that helps! Ania
Do you know how long they last fresh for once baked and cooled. Thanks
I'm not sure. The filling will last a while (3-4 days definitely), but the puff pastry loses its crunch and it's best eaten on the same day. Hope that helps! x Ania
I would not recommend that as chickpea flour will give you a very different texture. Cashews are fatty so they provided much needed creaminess and silkiness while chickpea flour won't quite do that, in my opinion. Hope that helps! Ania
I was wondering if the silken tofu and cashews also can be replaced?
I think you are better off finding a different recipe, to be honest. I have not tried making it with any other ingredients than what the recipe calls for. Ania
Nuts are also insanely expensive here, so if anyone have tried replacing the cashews with something else, I happily hear about how that went! :)
Thanks! :)
I believe I read in a comment that if you are afraid it will taste too much of coconut, then you could just use the creme brulee recipe you have created, but I cant seem to find the recipe for it? :)
Also I have never tasted a portugese creme pie, and I was wondering how the texture is? From the photo of it being cut, it looks very firm almost jelly-like? Do you have any tips on how to make it more creamy, and less firm?
And I read a comment saying she had cut down on the maple syrup and it still tasted great, so I was thinking about doing the same since it might otherwise be too sweet for what I have in mind, but do you have any guess to how this might affect the texture?
Thank you! :)
I do not have a creme brulee recipe so I think you might be confusing my recipe with someone else's. The texture is soft and creamy. If you want it even less firm, reduce the amount of cornflour used or skip altogether. You can adjust the sweetness to your liking when you prepare the mixture, it's no problem at all. Hope that helps! Ania
There are step by step photos within the post showing you how to turn the dough into circles - coupled up with the instructions, they should make it easier to understand. For ideal results, both baking (to set the custard and bake the pastry) and grilling/flaming/broiling (to char the tops) is needed. If you don't have a broiler simply just bake, but do not extend the baking time too much as it will make the filling dry. Hope that makes sense! Ania
I must buy saffron to see if I can get the colour more like yours in the photo - for now I use tumeric but I find the colour is not quite what I am looking for.
I am Portuguese and I have been vegan for 4 years now. This is something that I miss so much eating. I thought many times to try to veganise it but like you I was scared of the custard. By far your recipe is the one that looks more like a Pastel de Nata on the internet.
I will be definitely be trying this recipe. I will post it on Instagram when I do and I will mention you too. 😊
Thank you so much again!!! 😄
These are really the nicest on the day they've been made. If you have to store them, I would put them into an air-tight container and store them in the fridge. Hope that helps! Ania
Phyllo pastry is very different from puff as it's thin and crispy, whereas puff is soft and pillowy so not sure if it will work well in the forms of little muffins. What you could do, however, is make a Greek custard pastry called bougatsa instead :). It is layers of lightly greased phyllo pastry wrapped around a custard filling and topped with icing sugar and cinnamon. I reckon that will be beautiful! Hope that helps! Ania
I have not tried making these with anything else other than cashews and tofu so I cannot be sure, I'm afraid. I reckon that coconut cream (thick part of the full fat coconut milk) and tofu may render a similar result, but you would need to try and see. Ania