Portuguese custard tarts

Image 1: Portuguese custard tarts

Food synopsis: Canola puff pastry encasing fresh home made custard baked into a tart

Verdict: Sweetness was just right. Custard too runny. Pastry not fluffy enough and not enough in comparison to amount of custard. Didn't use butter puff pastry, so probably the major problem. May need to blind bake canola puff pastry before adding custard.

Recipe
Source: Donna Hay Magazine, Autumn 2012, page 100
Prep 20 min
Baking 30 min


Ingredients
3/4 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup water
Peel of 1 lemon (1/2 only, this time)
1/4 cup cornflour (tapioca flour this time)
1 1/2 cup milk
3 egg yolk
1 x 375g sheet all butter puff pastry, halved (canola oil this time)

Method

1. In a medium saucepan, melt sugar in water with lemon peel on medium heat. Once melted, increase to high heat until syrup is boiling. Remove lemon peel.
2. In a medium sized bowl, whisk  cornflour with 1/2 cup milk until dissolved. Add egg yolks and 1 cup milk and whisk until well combined.
3. Pour hot sugar syrup into egg / milk mixture. Whisk until well combined. Then pour back into the saucepan.
4. On medium heat, whisk the custard until thickened. In this case, we did it until it was like a Milo dessert -'yoghurt' tubs. Next time I think I might heat it until it's even thicker, to set jelly consistency.
5. Leave the aside to cool
6. Prepare the pastry:
   Lay the halved sheets of puff pastry on top on each other
   Starting from the short edge, roll up both sheets into a tight roll
   Cut the roll into 12 discs (number of tarts to make). Next time, might try 6, for more pastry in the tart
   Flatten out each disk to a 10 cm diameter circle. Use this to line a muffin pan cup, or tart mold.
   Fill custard to 1/2 the volume of the cup.
   Bake for 25 - 30 mins or until custard is slightly blistered on the top.