Portuguese Tarts

I have lived beside Monastery Bakery bakery my whole life. When I was little, it only took up one shop front, but since then it has expanded to about 5, and has even gone recent renovation to expand into the back. And it’s with good purpose, because it is definitely the best bakery I’ve ever stepped foot in.

My favourite thing from there (apart from the tiramisu, which I will leave to them or I’ll end up making my own birthday cake every year) are the Portuguese egg tarts. My mum grew up near Little Portugal in Toronto, so she likes them, my grandma likes them, and anyone we’ve forced to eat them has liked them. It’s a group love.

(I swear to you, they are the greatest. Make ‘em. Impress your homies.)

I’m going the lazy way with the crust today, sorry. It’s also 24 Hour Comics Day and I should really be doing that instead, but dammit, I want some tarts. Also, my papa is coming over today and I want to give some to him to take home. Aww. You can either do it this way, or get one of the Pilsbury pre-made crusts and just cut it up. Or you can make it all by scratch and show me up, do what you gotta do.

What you will need:

Crust
1 box pie crust mix (11oz)
3 tablespoons melted butter
1/3 cup cold water

Filling
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup of sugar
1/3 cup whipping cream
1/3 cup milk
3 drops vanilla extract

Crust
Dump the pie mix out of the little bag (I know it’s tough, but we’ll pull through together), and add in your 3 tablespoons of melted butter. I like how the butter tells you how much 3 tablespoons is right on it, because I could never figure that out on my own. I’m not good with measurements. Thanks, butter!

Stir that together until it’s doughy, and then add 1/3 cup of cold water. It’ll look sort of wet, but it will all come together, don’t worry. Action shot!

It’ll end up looking like this, which is good, because that’s what pie dough looks like. You can either roll it into 12 little balls now, or just set it aside and deal with it later. I chose the lazy route and just stuck it in the corner.

Filling

Separate 4 egg yolks into a bowl. Here’s a picture of egg yolks.

Cool. Now add 1/2 a cup off sugar, like so:

Then add 1/3 cup of whipping cream, 1/3 cup of milk, and 3 drops of vanilla extract. I don’t carry around an eye dropper for baking, so I just threw some in. I like vanilla, whatever.

Whisk it all together until it’s an even colour, and it’s nice and smooth. You’re going to have to strain it into another bowl, so go get a strainer. If you’re wondering why you’d need to, like I did, it’s because the sugar and the egg yolks make these nasty orange little boogery things, and you totally don’t want those in your tarts. That’s horrible.

After you strain it, it’ll look like this:

Put it all together!

Preheat your oven to 204°C (400°F). Butter a muffin pan so you can get your tarts out after you bake them. Always important!

Take your dough, either in little balls already or left in blob form, and press some into each muffin… dent. I don’t know. You want them to go up the sides as well, but try not to stretch them too thin, because then all the stuff will fall out the bottom. Oh no!

Then take your egg mixture and pour it into the pastry shells. I used a spoon, which you might want to do too. It’s easier, for sure. Fill them up about 3/4s of the way.

Put them in the oven and bake them for 15-20 minutes. I had a bit of time to kill, so I ate one of these awesome danishes from the aforementioned Monastery Bakery. Look at this badass:

Sweet.

When they’re done, take them out and set them aside to cool for a little bit. The pastry should be fluffy, and the egg mixture should be solid enough to not jiggle around a lot when you take them out. Like a custard! …since it’s custard. Shh.

And there you go! Delicious, delicious Portuguese Tarts.

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