My inspiration for this round of baking came from a trip to Portugal. I was lucky enough to spend five days in Lisbon over Christmas. One of the food highlights was getting my teeth into Portugal's pasteis de nata, something I had long anticipated! Pasteis de nata are sweet, creamy, cinnamon dusted custard tarts in flakey pastry cases. They are extremely delicious (as you may well imagine), and went down a treat when taken with a cup of bica (espresso strength coffee).Many Portuguese pastries and sweets are based on the ingredients sugar and eggs, and some contain only these. The Moors were responsible for bringing sugar cane to Portugal (to keep them sweet whilst in occupation for 500 years). The nuns of post-Moorish Portugal are credited for blending sugar with egg yolks aplenty, and thereby inventing the myriad of golden doces conventvais (conventual sweets). Why so? Well, convents tended to be pretty well-off. They took the excess daughters of the wealthy (cheaper than marrying them off), and these women brought 'dowries' with them to the convent which included plenty of chickens. Lots of chicken = lots of eggs. The egg whites were possibly used either for clarifying wines, or for starching habits. The yolks were used up by making delicious sweets which were sold to raise further funds for the convent. For these nuns life was sweet.As befits a country with many traditional foods based on eggs, milk and cream, custard tarts are a fixture of nearly all British cake shops and bakeries (sometimes very good, and sometimes a crime in the name of custard). Inspired by the scrumptiousness of Portuguese tarts I thought I would look into our own British version, and treat myself to a home-made tart or two.(Ingredients are approximately 2/3 of the quantities given in the book, as I wanted to make small individual tarts, not one large one. I have adapted the method for preparing small tarts.)pinch of saffron strands ground in mortar, then soaked in 1 1/2 tablespoons of warm water4 egg yolks235ml double cream85ml milk45g white sugarpinch saltsweet shortcrust pastry1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas mark 6.2. Roll out pastry and use to line small tins. I did a variety of sizes but all roughly 3-4 inches wide.3. Prick, fill with baking beans and pop into oven for about 15 minutes to bake 'blind'. Keep an eye on so that the pastry doesn't colour and burn.4. In the meantime mix up your custard. This recipe doesn't call for you to heat the custard whilst you mix it, all ingredients are whisked together cold. First beat the eggs yolks lightly, then add the cream, milk, sugar, saffron water and salt. Simple.5. Take tart cases out of oven, tip/pick the baking beans out. Turn the oven down to 160C/325F/Gas mark 3.6. Pour custard into tart cases and return to oven. I let mine bake for 25 minutes. You want the custard to be just set as it will continue to cook after the tart is removed from the oven.When the tarts first came out of the oven they were a frightening sight. The custard mixture was quite frothy when it went into the cases, and the hot custard puffed up in the oven. Fortunately as the tarts cooled the custard settled, leaving a ripple effect and some attractive bubbles.