Pastel de nata

A thin cup of laminated pastry holding an egg-yolk custard, baked so hot that the top blisters black in spots while the inside stays loose: the pastel de nata is Lisbon's pastry, and the city still eats it warm, standing up, with cinnamon shaken over it. It began in Belém, at the Jerónimos monastery, where monks used egg yolks left over from starching habits with the whites; when the religious orders were dissolved in 1834 the recipe passed to a nearby sugar refinery, and the shop that opened there in 1837 still sells the original under the name pastel de Belém, from a recipe it has never published. Everywhere else the same tart is a pastel de nata. The Macau egg tart and its Hong Kong descendants are the same idea carried east; the English custard tart is a shortcrust cousin with no blistering.