Pastel de Nata com Laranja

When you want to try both Pastel de Nata and Pudim de Laranja and you're allowed to only have one desert.

This week I really wanted to have a try at a Portuguese desert. While I was initially set at making Pastel de Nata, during my research for popular Portuguese foods, I came across Pudim de Laranje (Orange Pudding) and found myself in a culinary dilemma. Making both of these deserts was not an option - as they both belong to the same family of convent deserts.

Convent deserts are recipes made by the convent nuns who found themselves with too many egg yolks - after egg whites were use to starch (funny choice of words since egg whites are anything but starchy) religious attire.

To make things more interesting, I have challenged myself to make this recipe healthier. Original pastéis de nata have around 20g butter and 20g sugar per pastry.

I've managed to make them with half the butter and no added sugar. Instead, I've used Stevia (most of which is Erythriol) to sweeten the filling and added a splash of orange juice for both flavor and sweetness.

Both Stevia and Erythriol can be safely used in baking. They are also practically calorie free and, when had in moderation (normally up to 1g/kg body weight for erythriol), should not produce negative side effects. In case anyone is worried, this recipe gives pastries with 3.6g sweetener per piece, so getting to your upper limit is not that easy even if you have an extra pastry or two.

This recipe is part of the 2020 - Week 32 - Portuguese Menu. Look under Menus for all other recipes of the series or Subscribe to our mailing list and receive complete weekly menu ideas with everything from the grocery shopping list to all standardized recipes in a menu, as well as an organized Order of Cooking list to save you time in the kitchen.

Watch the step-by-step video instructions on our YouTube channel here.

Download the recipe here:

Pastel de Nata com Laranja

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Bom appetite!