Crème Brûlée Pastéis de Nata
Crème Brûlée Pastéis de Nata. Quite the mouthful to say… and eat.
Like many of the baked goods I’ve come to treasure, pastéis de nata is another delight from my summers in China. China’s KFC—yes, that old dude and fried chicken place— makes an absurdly perfect egg tart. I go to KFC for their egg tarts, not mashed potato or fried chicken. For some reason, the American KFC line didn’t catch on, and that’s truly a shame given how viral and iconic KFC egg tarts have become in the past decade in China.
KFC egg tarts have a Chinese pastry crust (sand-like and tender from butter being blended in) unlike the laminated pastry of Portuguese pastéis de nata. As such I took the crust I’ve come to love and fused the custard of pastéis de nata with crème brûlée.
Vanilla and egg can never go wrong together, and a burnt sugar crust only elevates that flavor to ethereal. The trick of sieving twice promises an incredibly silky custard devoid of the air bubbles that come with any form of baked egg.
All things aside, this pastry fusion is addicting. Elegant. Kinda swanky. But it definitely fulfills my childhood memories, so perhaps it’s even an upgrade of KFC’s egg tarts.
Ingredients:
Tart Crust:
145g all-purpose flour
1 stick unsalted butter, cubed and very cold
3 tbsp of ice water
¾ tsp kosher salt
Custard:
1 egg
2 egg yolks
60g whole milk
125g heavy cream
20g condensed milk
20g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Steps:
Grease 4 4.5 inch tart pans with butter.
Make the crust. Blitz all the ingredients together in a food processor until a fine crumb. Dump out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out into a 1/4 inch thickness.
Drape the dough over each tart pan and press down firmly so the dough fills each crevice and curve of the pan. Chill the dough for 15-20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 410º F.
Meanwhile, make the custard. Add all custard ingredients in a bowl and whisk until completely incorporated. Using a sieve, sift the mixture twice, catching all the lumps in the custard.
Take tart pans out from fridge. Using a toothpick, poke 4-5 holes into the dough at the bottom of the pan (this creates an escape valve for air buildup while baking, thus avoiding the crust from puffing up). Divide the custard equally among the four tarts. With another toothpick, gently pop all air bubbles at the surface of the custard for a smooth surface.
Bake for 10 minutes on the middle rack. Then, switch the tarts to the upper rack and set the oven to the “broil” function at Medium for 5 minutes. At this point, the custard should have charred, black circles, but not completely over-burnt.
Remove and cool to room temperature.