For 15 years, painter Lucian Freud had breakfast every day at Clarke’s in Notting Hill, satisfying his sweet tooth with Portuguese custard tarts like these.
Makes 12
Heat the oven to 200C. Grease a 12-hole muffin tray, and put in the freezer. Dust a chilled 320g sheet of all-butter puff pastry with icing sugar, roll into a tight log and cut into 12 rounds. Roll each flat, to roughly 11cm across, dust with icing sugar, push into the tray and put in the fridge.
Whisk three egg yolks and 100g caster sugar until creamy. Mix two tablespoons of cornflour with a little milk, then whisk into the yolks. Heat 200ml single cream, 250ml whole milk and half a vanilla pod, seeds scraped out, until almost boiling. Remove from the heat, fish out the pod and slowly whisk into the yolks. Pour back into the pan and heat gently, stirring, for three minutes. Pour into the pastry cases and bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden and dark spots appear on the custard. Eat warm.
