Pasteis de Nata — cookly.recipes

Below 280 C the top will not blister before the custard turns grainy, so your oven decides this recipe more than your hands do.

WHAT YOU GET

The chef's hidden note — the technique no cookbook prints
Every component built from scratch, each with its own spec
Films on choosing and judging the produce before you buy it
Gross and net gram weights for every ingredient, per portion
Time and temperature at each stage, as run in the restaurant
A photo at every step that can go wrong
Substitutions for anything hard to find where you live
What usually goes wrong, and what to do about it

Yours for good once bought. Updates from the chef included.

BEFORE YOU BUY

Equipment: An oven that genuinely holds 280-300 C, ideally a deck oven, Plain steel pastel tins, 7 cm across the rim, Sugar thermometer reading 90-115 C
Allergens: Gluten, Milk, Egg
Method: 32 steps · 21 photographed · 8 filmed
Components: 3 made from scratch
Films: 3, 34 min

3 RECIPES INSIDE THIS RECIPE

Each with its own weights, steps and timings

The sauce, the cure, the dough, the dressing — a restaurant makes these itself, and so will you. Every one below is a full sub-recipe: its own ingredient list, its own method, its own yield and shelf life. Nothing says «use shop-bought».

Massa folhada rolada

Film

Portuguese puff: a slack water dough smeared with butter and rolled into a log, never folded in turns.

Block-folded French puff rises in flakes; the rolled log is what gives the cup its concentric rings.

Strong wheat flour000 g
Water000 g
Something cured000 g
A hard cheese000 g
The bitter leaf000 g

Steps: 10
Time: 7 h
Hands-on: 45 min

Makes 700 g dough, two logs, 24 tins; 2 days refrigerated or 1 month frozen

Make it the day before; the log must rest at least six hours cold before it is cut into discs.

Weights and method unlock on purchase

Calda de canela e limao

A sugar syrup taken to 100 C and infused with cinnamon bark and wide strips of lemon peel.

Dry sugar stirred into the milk base never fully dissolves; a measured syrup fixes sweetness and set.

Caster sugar000 g
Water000 g
Something cured000 g
A hard cheese000 g
The bitter leaf000 g

Steps: 5
Time: 25 min
Hands-on: 10 min

Makes 560 g syrup, one batch of 24; 1 week refrigerated

Make it while the milk base is on the stove; it goes in hot, in a thin stream, whisking.

Weights and method unlock on purchase

Creme base de leite e farinha

Film

Milk thickened with flour to a smooth paste, let down with the hot syrup, finished with yolks off heat.

Cornflour sets brittle and weeps under 300 C; wheat flour gives the soft body the custard needs.

Whole milk000 g
Strong wheat flour000 g
Something cured000 g
A hard cheese000 g
The bitter leaf000 g

Steps: 8
Time: 1 h
Hands-on: 25 min

Makes 1.5 kg custard, 24 pasteis at 60 g; 2 days refrigerated

Make it a day ahead and chill it; cold custard in cold tins bakes far more evenly.

Weights and method unlock on purchase

WEIGHED

INGREDIENTS

A taste of the list · the rest locked

A few ingredients to show you what the dish is built on. Every one on the full list carries a gross and a net weight per portion, and a note on what you can swap it for where you live.

Strong wheat flour000 g
Unsalted butter000 g
Whole milk000 g
Caster sugar000 g
Egg yolks000 g
Smoked something000 g
A whole bulb000 g
Cold-pressed oil000 g
Aged for weeks000 g

The full list, weighed, unlocks on purchase

WATCH BEFORE YOU SHOP

3 films · 34 min

Most of what goes wrong is decided at the counter, before you cook anything. These are filmed by the chef: what to buy, how to tell it is good, and how to set your own kitchen up for it.

CHOOSING10:00

Flour and butter for massa folhada: protein, water, plasticity

TECHNIQUE13:00

Rolling the log: the smear, the roll, and why you never fold

KIT11:00

Making a domestic oven behave like a Lisbon deck oven

METHOD

STEP BY STEP — 32 STEPS

21 photographed · 8 filmed

Written the way a restaurant writes a technical card: one operation per step, each with its own time and temperature. 21 of the 32 carry a photo of what it should look like at that moment, and 8 carry a short clip for the parts a still cannot show.

Hardest step: pressing dough evenly into the tin — step 19 of 32.

01
Read the whole method before you start, then weigh everything out. Every timing below assumes the next ingredient is already within reach.
Free preview
02
03
04
05
06
+ 26 more steps, timed and photographed

WHERE IT USUALLY GOES WRONG

3 things Rui Vasconcelos watches for every service. You can read what they are right now — the answer to each one comes with the recipe.

01
The oven is forty degrees short and the custard pays for it
What to do about it
02
Dough thin at the base and thick at the rim, soggy underneath
What to do about it
03
Tins filled to the brim, so the custard boils over and welds them
What to do about it

The chef's hidden note

The rings in the cup are decided by how the dough is shaped, not by how many turns it is given.

Written by Rui Vasconcelos. Visible only to people who bought this recipe.

Read it — $2.99

NOTES FROM THE KITCHENS

62 verified cooks · 93% said it worked

Only people who bought the recipe and showed the dish they made can leave a note. Nobody is paid for it.

PAY $2.99 ONCE

62 people cooked it, 93% got it right, and that is the entire reason it costs $2.99 rather than nothing. In 138 more cooks the price becomes $6.99. Your copy never does.

One payment · Yours for good · No subscription