A Portuguese tart, or pastel de nata, is a beloved and iconic pastry known around the world. These treats feature a rich, caramelized egg custard nestled inside a buttery, flaky pastry shell. While a local Portuguese bakery is usually the best place to enjoy them, I recently spotted Kirkland Signature Portuguese Custard Tarts at Costco and decided to give them a try. If you’re a fan of pastel de nata, keep reading to see how the Costco version stacks up!
Location in Store
These tarts are located in the refrigerated bakery section of Costco, near the strawberry cheesecake and the limoncello mascarpone cake. The item number is 1973669.
Taste
First off, I want to say that these tarts aren’t quite as tasty as the ones you’d get from a local, family-owned Portuguese bakery, but they’re still pretty good. The pastry is flaky and buttery.
One thing I noticed and didn’t love is that the outer pastry tends to flake off, leaving the custard center surrounded by soggy pastry. The pastry and custard in the middle seem to separate quite easily.
The custard itself is enjoyable, though it doesn’t have much flavor beyond sweetness. I find it just a bit too sweet, but still good overall. If the custard were slightly less sweet, I think the tarts would taste even better. They’re still very enjoyable, and my parents found them delightful when I shared them!
Cost
The package includes 20 Portuguese tarts and costs $12.99 CAD, which works out to just over $1.50 per tart, a price that seems quite reasonable to me.
Convenience
The tarts need to be kept refrigerated, as they’re sold in the refrigerated bakery section so it would be easy to accidentally leave them out. You could try freezing them, though I’m not sure how that might affect the texture of the custard.
The best-before date is three days from the purchase date, and I’d recommend eating them as soon as possible, I noticed they became a bit soggier by day two. They’re great as a sweet mid-morning or afternoon snack with coffee or tea or served as dessert!
Nutrition
Calories
Two tarts contain 300 calories, 14 grams of fat, 38 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fibre, 20 grams of sugar, 5 grams of protein, and 190 milligrams of sodium. That means one tart has 150 calories, 7 grams of fat, and 10 grams of sugar.
Ingredients
The ingredients list isn’t as long as I expected, but I don’t love seeing palm fat, palm stearin, and sunflower oil used instead of butter in the pastry. I’m also not a fan of glucose-fructose syrup. The tarts contain milk, egg, and wheat, and may contain tree nuts, peanuts, soy, sesame, and mustard.
Overall
Give it a try!
These aren’t the best Portuguese tarts I’ve had, but they’re not bad at all and are quite enjoyable. They’re just a bit on the sweet side for my liking, but my parents who love Portuguese tarts thought they were great.
Two tarts contain 300 calories.
Nope, palm fat, palm stearin and sunflower oil is used.
20.
Have you tried the Costco Kirkland Signature Portuguese Custard Tarts? What did you think of them? Drop a comment below!
Please note that this review was not paid for or sponsored by any third party. This product was purchased by Costcuisine for the purpose of producing this review. The opinions in this review are strictly those of Costcuisine. Costcuisine is not affiliated with Costco or any of its suppliers. In the event that Costcuisine receives compensation for a post from the manufacturer of a product or some other third party, the arrangement will be clearly disclosed (including where the manufacturer of a product provides Costcuisine with a free sample of the product).
