Portugese Tarts

Portugese tarts are creamy, baked custard tarts in a crisp pastry shell.  They're super easy and are just so delicious that you will want to make more. I know this as I only made a few (which was probably just as well) but made me feel sad on the day.  I made them several weeks ago and, as usual, had not got around to posting them on the blog until now. I’ve been distracted by having a little fling with Instagram. It’s very tempting to just snap a photo, post it with very few words and hey presto there’s your story. No writer’s block involved nor, for that matter, much styling. But it is nice to come back to the blog now and again.

If you’re a perfectionist, you’ll want to know in advance that the custardy filling does sag a little after baking. But hey the taste is the thing here so let's just let that one go, okay?

Before starting, bear in mind there's an hour's chilling time once you've placed the pastry circles in the tin.

Add a sprinkle of cinnamon if you want, it’s in most recipes, but I left it out as I’d just made a chocolate cake which contained cinnamon and the taste came through quite strongly.  As noted in the recipe below, I had no single cream so used double cream - double yummy I think! Well worth doing again ... and again.

Portugese Tarts

Serves 9

2 sheets frozen puff pastry
1 egg
2 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
2 tbsp cornflour
300ml cream*
100ml standard/full cream milk
a couple of strips of orange peel (I used mandarin)
vanilla bean

*I used the wonderful Lewis Road double cream as I didn't have single cream.


Remove pastry from freezer to defrost.

Lightly spray 9 holes of a 12-hole tart tin with oil or grease lightly with butter.

Using a 9cm diameter cookie cutter (or top of a glass or a lid) cut 9 circles out of the pastry and press gently into the holes to fit. Place in the fridge to chill for an hour.

Meanwhile, make the custard by placing the egg, two egg yolks, caster sugar and cornflour in a medium saucepan (don't turn heat on yet) and stir to combine. Add the milk and cream and stir again. Add orange or mandarin peel and whole vanilla bean and heat gently, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens and just comes to the boil.

Remove from heat, discard peel and vanilla bean (this can be rinsed, dried and used again). Transfer custard to a pouring jug and cover the top of the custard with plastic wrap to stop it from forming a skin. Leave to cool completely.

Heat oven to 220°C. Divide mixture evenly between the pastry cases and bake 20-25 minutes until pastry and custard are just starting to colour.

Remove from the oven, leave in tin for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

These are best eaten on the same day at room temperature. Actually, these are best eaten - full stop.

Banana, walnut & sultana cake

I don't make banana cakes too often as I don't particularly like them. There's too many large, bland (and often dry) ones. Or else they have that slight stickiness and a none too pleasant banana smell about them. Instead I've been happier to freeze my ultra ripe bananas for smoothies instead for their luscious creaminess.

But there is one banana cake recipe I've always kept. Many moons ago one of the playgroup mothers made this cake and it's about the only one I've ever loved.  

It's not a deep, high-rise cake but sits low in the tin, is wonderfully moist, slightly spicy and has the crunchiness of the walnuts and chewy sultanas.  

Serve it as a cake but it's just as good straight from the oven as a dessert with some whipped cream or vanilla mascarpone. I like to serve it with Greek yoghurt.

Banana, walnut & sultana cake

2 bananas, peeled and chopped
1 cup walnuts, quartered
1 cup sultanas
2/3 cup soft brown sugar
100g butter, melted
1 egg
1 cup self-raising flour 
2 teaspoons mixed spice

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and line a 23cm cake tin.

Mix the bananas, walnuts, sultanas and sugar in a mixing bowl. 

Beat the egg and melted butter together and stir in to the banana mixture. 

Sift the flour and spices together then add them to the mix, stirring gently just to incorporate.

Bake for approximately 35-40 minutes or until the top springs back when pressed and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Linzer Biscuits

Back to baking again and this time something a little different.  These are the first biscuits I've made using a walnut dough.  

You may have heard of Linzer Torte?  Considered to be the oldest cake in the world, the Linzer Torte was named after the city of Linz in Austria.  It's a pastry made with ground nuts and filled with blackcurrant preserve.  These are the biscuit version of the Linzer Torte.  So instead of a pastry base, you cut out biscuit shapes, bake them and sandwich them with a preserve.  I wonder what's Austrian for hey presto?

I really liked the taste and texture of the biscuits - both crisp and crumbly and just enough of a nutty taste without overpowering. 

They were easy and quick to make and the dough rolled out nicely but if it gets too warm to handle, pop it back in the fridge for a few minutes.   

Next time I'd make them a little thicker and perhaps use next cookie cutter size up for a more substantial biscuit.

As I've noted in the recipe below, I didn't have a small enough cutter for the inner circle so I used an apple corer (!) - which is why the circles are a bit unshapely.

The recipe here uses walnuts, but you can substitute almonds or hazelnuts.  Not having blackcurrant preserve, I used raspberry.

I'm sharing these with the lovely Mairi at Toast who is hosting this month's Sweet New Zealand.

Linzer Biscuits

2/3 cup (100g) standard flour

2/3 cup (150g) caster sugar

1 1/2 cups (180g) walnuts, finely chopped

1 hard-boiled egg yolk only, crumbled

90g (3 oz) cold butter, diced

1 egg yolk

jam to fill biscuits (I used raspberry jam)

icing sugar

Combine the flour, sugar, walnuts and hard-boiled egg in a bowl.  Add butter and rub in with your fingertips until combined.

Stir in the egg yolk until the dough comes together.  Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently until smooth.

Cut dough in half and roll each portion between sheets of baking paper to 3mm (1/8 inch) thick.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes (leave the baking paper between the sheets).

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C/325 degrees F.  Grease two oven trays and line with baking paper.

Cut circles or fluted rounds from the first portion of the dough and place on the trays about 2.5cm (1 inch) apart.  Cut the same circles from the second half of the dough and then cut out a 2.5cm (1 inch) circle or fluted round from the centre of each circle.  (I used an apple corer to do this as I didn't have a small enough cutter.)

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes and cool on the trays.  

Sandwich the biscuits with jam and dust the tops with icing sugar.

The biscuits (without the jam) can be be kept in an airtight container for about a week.