Pastéis de nata cooked over a wood fire

💡 This traditional recipe, created in the 19th century at the Jerónimos Monastery in Belém, has become the hallmark of Portuguese pastry-making.
For a long time, pastéis de nata were baked in a wood-fired oven. The Portuguese blogger Manuela Cardoso, for example, recalls the ones she used to make as a child with her mother and grandmother.

Even today, the famous patisseries Nataria Nacional and Manteigaria in Lisbon highlight their use of wood-fired baking to set themselves apart, as this produces a firm, crisp pastry with a melt-in-the-mouth centre.

Preparation stages

1. Mix the milk, cream, sugar, cornflour and vanilla in a saucepan. When the milk comes to the boil, remove the vanilla pod, squeeze out the beans and stir into the mixture.

2. Add the beaten egg yolks and lemon juice. Mix well.

3. Cook slowly, stirring, until creamy.

4. Butter the small aluminium moulds. Roll out the puff pastry and cut out circles of pastry to fit into the small moulds. Prick the pastry with a fork.

5. Remove the pan from the heat and leave the mixture to cool for a few minutes.

6. Pour the mixture into the small moulds.

7. Bake the pastéis de nata in your wood-fired oven at 180°C for 20 to 30 minutes with the door closed. Allow to brown slightly on top. Serve while still warm or lukewarm, sprinkled with cinnamon or sugar.

(This recipe was kindly passed on to us by a Grand-Mère oven user, Stéphane Nowowiejski. Many thanks to him!)