Portuguese custard cups: Creamy desserts as a special treat

Method

• Preheat the oven to 200°C and lightly grease a 1×12 hole muffin pan.
• Make a syrup by combining the water, sugar, zest and vanilla. Add the ingredients to a pot and bring to a boil. Make sure there is 500 ml syrup.
• Add milk to the syrup and bring to boil.
• Combine egg yolks, cornflour, flour and custard powder with 125 ml of the milk mixture and whisk well to ensure that there are no lumps.
• Add a third of the hot milk mixture to the egg mixture, a ladleful at a time whisking constantly.
• Strain the egg mixture into the remaining milk mixture and return to the heat, whisking constantly.
• Bring it back to gently simmer cover a medium heat.
• Remove from heat, cover the surface with plastic wrap and let it cool.
• Roll the pastry out on a lightly floured surface until it is about 4,5cm in diameter. Place it in the freezer for 10 minutes to cool.
• Remove the pastry from the freezer and cut it into 1 cm thick discs.
• Gently roll the discs out to about 3 mm thick, maintaining the circular shape.
• Be careful not to roll it out too much as this will destroy the puff layer.
• Line the muffin pan with the pastry and place it in the freezer for 15 minutes.
• Pipe the custard into the pastry shells so that they are about three-quarters full bake them until the custard has a slightly burnt appearance and the pastry is cooked for about 15 minutes, cool slightly before serving.