Portuguese custard tarts (pastéis de nata)

Crisp, flaky pastry cups filled with a silky vanilla and lemon custard, blistered dark on top in a very hot oven, like the ones from Lisbon's bakeries. Best eaten warm with a dusting of cinnamon.

Ingredients

• 320 g All-butter puff pastry, ready-rolled
• 4 Eggs, yolks only (use the whites for meringues)
• 100 g Caster sugar
• 25 g Cornflour
• 350 ml Milk
• 5 ml Vanilla extract
• 0.5 Lemons, peel only, in a strip
• 1 g Ground cinnamon, for dusting
• 5 g Icing sugar, for dusting

Method

1. Heat the oven as hot as it goes, ideally 240°C (220°C fan), and butter a 12-hole muffin tin.
2. Roll the pastry up tightly from the short end into a log and cut into 12 slices. Put each slice cut-side up in a muffin hole and press it with a wet thumb into a thin cup coming just above the rim. Chill while you make the custard.
3. Whisk the yolks, sugar and cornflour in a pan, then gradually whisk in the milk. Add the lemon peel and cook over a medium heat, stirring all the time, until thick like custard. Take out the peel, stir in the vanilla and cool for 10 minutes.
4. Fill the pastry cases three-quarters full and bake until the pastry is golden and the custard has dark, blistered patches.
5. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes, then lift out and dust with cinnamon and icing sugar. Eat warm or the same day.