Weekly Smile: Angelo Vieira’s Authentic Puff Pastry Tartlets

Putnam County farmers markets, from the Walnut Street Market and Cookeville Green Market to the Algood Farmers Market and Cookeville Farmers Market, offer an impressive selection of fruits, vegetables, meats, artisan breads and pastries. Markets throughout the surrounding Upper Cumberland counties provide even more options.

These locally made goods can make time around the dinner table more delightful or make a quiet moment spent with a savory cup of coffee even better, whether it comes during a busy, peaceful or in-between kind of day.

Angelo Vieira, creator and head baker of The Tartlet Temple, offers strawberry, blueberry, cherry, peach and custard tartlets inspired by a family baking legacy. He is one of those vendors worth visiting on a Saturday morning.

Angelo makes his puff pastry from scratch. Did you hear that? From scratch! It is not a store-bought pastry transformed into something made at home, a sad devolution of the word “homemade.” This is authentic, made-from-scratch pastry.

“The Tartlet Temple specializes in traditional, meticulously handcrafted homemade puff pastries that offer the Upper Cumberland community something truly special, nostalgic and deeply delicious,” Angelo explained.

It was a skill his father taught him.

“Back in the late ’90s, my dad owned a Portuguese bakery on Long Island, New York,” Angelo said. “I worked at the bakery for a few years, and this is where I learned how to make pastries, cakes and breads.”

The bakery offered many items, and some of its traditional pastries came from closely guarded secret recipes, especially the pastel de nata, a Portuguese custard tartlet.

“The Tartlet Temple was born from this one tartlet,” Angelo said. “I have taken the original base, the puff pastry shell, and introduced an array of flavors.”

It is a recipe steeped in legend.

“The tartlet is the main feature of our menu, with the promise of future varieties and flavors,” Angelo explained. “Legend has it that the pastel de nata was created in Belém, Portugal, by monks of the Jerónimos Monastery. They often used egg whites to starch their white garments and quickly found themselves with excess yolks. When life gives you egg yolks, make custard.”

The custard tartlet, served in a perfectly baked puff pastry shell, became world-famous.

When it came to choosing a name for their business, Angelo and his team returned to the legend.

“We wanted to pay homage to this original story,” he said.

They combined the tartlet with the history of the Jerónimos Monastery as a place of worship.

“We liked how ‘The Tartlet Temple’ sounded and how it could represent a sacred place for pastry,” Angelo said.

Before moving to Cookeville, Angelo honed his craft as a classical pastry chef on Long Island during the 1990s. He later crossed the Atlantic and mastered the art of mixology in some of the top hotel bars in London and Miami.

He stopped baking full time in the late 1990s. Today, he describes it as a hobby and a tiny home business.

Fortunately for Cookeville, it is a hobby he shares at the Cookeville Farmers Market, where there is an audience for authentic, locally made food.

“There are people passionate about eating fewer processed foods and enjoying more authentic recipes,” Angelo explained. “We live locally, and we wanted to share this incredible delight with more people, not just family and friends. The Cookeville Farmers Market seemed like the perfect place to start.”

Fortunately for those who visit the local farmers market searching for delicious things to add to their tables or enjoy alongside a cup of coffee, the call back to the bakery kitchen was one Angelo could no longer ignore.

Stop by Saturday morning to try some authentically crafted puff pastry tartlets.