Cooking Adventure: Making Pastel de Nata
On December 26, 2018 by brian.haferkampThis is a guest post from Baek. One of her Christmas gifts was a family baking adventure.
Today we made pastel de nata at a professional bakery with a professional baker. His name is Chef João.
First we drove to Lisbon. Then we parked and got out of the car. We went inside the bakery. It was called Pasteleria Batalha.
We walked downstairs and sat down at the tables together with Chef João and the other student participants.
Chef made a bean tart and an almond cheesecake pastry for us to try. It was his mom’s recipe.
Then we prepared to make pastel de nata. We took off our coats and put on aprons, hair net and shoe covers. And then we washed our hands.
Chef João took us into the kitchen so we could start making the dough. Bella helped measure the flour. She measured 1 kilo of flour on the scale.
I (Baek) dumped the flour into the HUGE mixer. The bowl was so big I could have sat in it. Daddy measured 20 grams of salt on the scale and added it to the mixture. Chef João poured 500 ml of cold water and turned on the mixer.
It ran for 2 minutes on low and 8 minutes on high. While we waited for that to be done, he told us the history of the pastel de nata. Then mommy took the dough and put it on the counter. Chef João let us feel the dough and have some dough to taste.
Then he added a slab of margarine. He folded it up into the dough and mushed it with a rolling pin. Then he rolled it with a mechanical rolling pin which was huge and fast.
He created the layers of dough by rolling the dough and then folding it again and again. When we finished that we took turns rolling it up into two big rolls and put them in the freezer for 5-10 minutes.
We made the custard while we waited for the dough to cool. He told us more about when he was a kid and working in his dad’s restaurant. He started when he was 8 years old!
We combined 2 liters of milk with 2 lemon peels, 2 sticks of cinnamon and a sugar+flour mixture. We had to put this in a pot on a hot stove at 240 degrees C. Then the mixture began boiling and became thicker like a custard but it was still liquid. He put the liquid ingredients to boil first and then added the dry ones after. He taught us a trick to know when it was finished by dragging the whisk through the mixture to create a trail of bubbles. We had to let it cool before adding the eggs.
Next we got the dough from the freezer and cut it into little chunks for small metal baking tins. We dipped our thumbs in water and smushed the dough out to the edge of each baking tin (about 40).
Once the custard cooled off we added the egg yolks. Then Chef João poured it into a purple custom custard dispenser (daddy wants me to call this a custard shooter) and then we squirted the custard filling into each shell.
Chef João put the pastries into the oven (convection oven) preheated to 250 degrees C for 10 minutes. After the 1st 5 minutes he took them out and turned the tray around because on one side the custards were more baked and were brown on their top. So he turned the tray around because he wanted to make them even.
After about 5 more minutes he took them out, put them on the counter and let us take pictures!
Then he took our orders for drinks. Bella and I had mango iced tea, daddy had a latte and mommy had a ginjha (served in a chocolate cup) with our fresh, warm pasteis de natas…we each ate 3.
My favorite part was that I got to bake! In a bakery! With a baker! I also enjoyed EATING them. Yummy. 😋