Pantxineta or Custard Pastries

Pantxineta is a recipe from the Basque region of Spain, I came across it when looking for a dessert I was making for www.wastedkitchen.co.uk If you like pastry and custard then you will love these. Make them any size or shape you like.

Makes: 6 - 7

Time: 1 hour plus chilling

INGREDIENTS

For the custard:

- 500ml Full fat milk

- 100g Caster sugar

- 40g Plain flour (If you want gluten free use all cornflour)

- 15g Cornflour

- 2 whole eggs plus 2 yolks

- 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional but I like it) - 1 tsp almond extract

For the pastries:

- 375g Pack of ready rolled puff pastry

- 1 large egg - beaten

- Nibbed almonds

- Icing sugar for dusting

Two baking sheets lined with non stick paper

METHOD

1 To make the custard place the milk in a saucepan and heat until just below boiling point

2 Place sugar, flour, cornflour, eggs, yolks, vanilla and almond extract into a medium size bowl and whisk until smooth. Pour over the hot milk and stir to combine.

3 Rinse out the saucepan, this will help stop the custard sticking as it cooks. Return the mixture to the clean saucepan and heat gently stirring constantly. if you try to do this quickly you will get scrambled egg and that's not nice. You may find stirring with a balloon whisk helps to give a nice smooth texture. Continue stirring until you have a thick custard. Pour into a bowl, press down a piece of non stick paper onto the surface to prevent a skin forming (no need for clingfilm) and pop into the fridge until completely cold. This can be done a day or so before you need it.

4 When you are ready to assemble the pastries ready for baking, unroll the ready made pastry and place on a lightly floured work surface. Roll gently to stretch the pastry, I find the ready rolled just a bit too thick.

5 Preheat the oven to 180C Fan or 200C conventional

6 Cut the pastry into 8 cm squares. I could get 14 out of my sheet ie 7 tops and bottoms. Place a generous spoonful into the centre of half the squares leaving about 1cm clear around the outside, brush the border with beaten egg and place a square of pastry on top. Seal the edges with a fork. Don't worry if a little custard creeps out it still seems to work.

7 Brush the top of the pastry with beaten egg, sprinkle on some nibbed nuts and sieve over some icing sugar.

8 Bake in a preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until risen and golden. Remove from the oven and sieve over some more icing sugar and leave to cool.

NOTE: You can prepare these until end of stage 6 the day before you need them and leave covered in the fridge. These delicious pastries are best on day of baking but if in the unlikely event you have any left over then just pop them in a hot oven for 5 minutes to crisp up the pastry.

NOTE TOO: If you haven't got any cornflour you can use custard powder it does make an extra lovely custard