Portuguese Egg Tarts

These tarts are a result of the following:-

1) A silly bet with AK on Aragorn's age. Bet you didn't know that dashing Aragorn is 80 years old! Well, he is apparently a descendant of the Dunedain, and they live 3 times the lifespan of normal man, you know?

2) So I lost and AK demanded Portuguese egg tarts
3) I always wanted to try making my own puff pastry, so I decided to attempt it here

4) It took me a span of 2 weeks to make the bloody pastry, with work, work travel, and the usual weekend activities.

5) I used the recipe in Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery cookbook, which calls for European-style, high-fat content butter

6) My forearms burnt each time I rolled out that damned batch of pastry. I felt like I was attempting peacock pose for a couple of hours, no joke!

7) Portuguese egg tarts need to be baked at really high temperature, to caramelize that layer of casein that rises to the top of the custard filling when baking.

I followed this formidable recipe for the custard filling, and it worked like a dream.

Once you have the pastry sorted the custard making part's a real cinch, really. They turned out well, I must say - since AK ate 8 tarts in a span of 2 days and then promptly asked for them again this coming weekend. Think I am going to buy my puff pastry this time.