The one thing about Lisbon that you will notice right away is there are pastry shops on every corner. The Portuguese definitely have a sweet tooth. We stopped at Pastelaria Ferrari because this café had their pastries on display in the windows and they looked so delicious.
We got a table and started off by ordering cappuccinos. These were freshly made with beautiful foam swirls on top with a sprinkling of cinnamon.
The pastry that caught our attention was the famous Pastel de Nata. These are a custard cream tart that can be found all over the city and everyone makes them about the same.
The Pastel de Nata were started in the convents because the nuns would use the egg whites to starch with habits and they had all these egg yolks left over. Rather than just throw them away they use the yolks along with the abundance of sugar that was available to them to make a custard that they baked up in little pie shells. This allowed them to make a little money and provide the Portuguese people with an amazing pastry that is popular even today.
We ordered a few of the original Pastel de Nata’s first. We sprinkled a little cinnamon on top. They are so creamy and sweet. The crust was flakey and crispy. It is the prefect size for a little sweet treat.
They did offer other flavors at this café. They used the same core custard tart and just topped them with different toppings. As we learned later on, these are more for the tourists, but we enjoyed them nonetheless. We tried three different toppings:
- Chocolate – this was a creamy milk chocolate spread on top. It was very rich.
- Almond – this was chopped up almonds with powdered sugar. It did not add much difference to the taste, but it did give a lot of texture to the custard.
- Strawberry – a fresh strawberry preserve was spread on top. This gave an extra sweet but tart taste to the creamy custard.
This place also packaged their different tarts so that you can take a box home. The Pastel de Nata’s were delicious and I could not wait to continue enjoying them throughout our visit.
Enjoy!
T
