Cheat's Portuguese Custard Tarts by Donna Hay @ Happy Retiree's Kitchen

If you are smitten with custard, you will love these tarts, encased in a very light and slightly crunchy tart (wonton) case. As you don't need to make any pastry, and the custard ingredients are just lightly whisked before being poured into the wrappers, it is certainly the cheat's way of making delicious custard tarts. Great idea Donna Hay, and this opens up lots of other possibilities for savoury quiches and other desserts as well.

When I first saw this recipe, I felt nostalgic for our trip to Lisbon in Portugal a few years ago where it soon became an enjoyable daily ritual to have our morning coffee with a Portuguese tart or two. I really missed those little beauties when we came home. The custard in these tarts is rich and smooth and reminds me very much of the custard in the authentic Lisbon variety which we enjoyed whilst on holiday. I just had to make them and Mr. HRK and our daughter love them so I will be baking more in the future.

I hope you enjoy them too.

Ingredients:

12-15 square wonton wrappers
1 egg
3 egg yolks
1x200 ml carton or 1 cup crème fraiche
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar
1/4 cup Golden Syrup

Equipment:

2 Muffin Tin trays with 12 x 1/2 cup capacity (The recipe says this mixture makes 12, however mine made 15)
1 whisk
1 medium sized bowl
1 small pouring jug
1x1/4 cup measuring cup

Let's Cook:

Preheat your oven to 220 deg. C or 425 deg. F.
Press 15 wonton wrappers into the 1/2 cup capacity muffin trays
Place the egg, egg yolks, crème fraiche, sugar and vanilla into a medium sized bowl and whisk lightly to combine.

Pour the mixture from a jug into the wonton wrappers with care not to overfill, and cook for 10 minutes.

The custard mixture will puff up and brown lightly. Some of them may blister, depending on your oven. However when you remove them from the oven they will collapse slightly into the shell.

Lots of delicious gooey tarts

Drizzle the tarts very lightly with half of the Golden Syrup and cook for a further 2 minutes to nicely brown them.

Remove from the tin and set aside on a wire rack to cool.

Then refrigerate  in a container with a lid until cold.

Serve drizzled with the remaining golden syrup if you or your family have a really sweet tooth, but for my taste they are  already sweet enough.

I am using a new laptop computer and adapting to quite a few changes. Lots of fun but hopefully it isn't that obvious to you at the other end.

Best wishes

Pauline