The Desserts: Portugal’s sweet tooth

Delicious Pastries

Portugal is a country of sights, but also a country of flavours. And no gastronomical journey of Portugal would be complete without tasting some deserts.

There are at least 200 different kinds of pastries to choose from!

It all started in medieval times, but when the sugar cane was brought by sailors from Brasil, the sugar literally made the sweets industry bloom like never before.

Pastéis de nata are, in our opinion, the best known Portuguese pastry specialty. These are small cream tarts, with a delicious creamy inside and a crunchy pastry shell. You can never eat only one. And the best place to eat them is in Belém, in Lisbon

Conventual deserts

In the XVII century, convents became famous for producing fine deserts. The monks invented, among other delicious recipes: toucinho do céu (heaven’s lard) and barrigas de freira (nun’s bellies).

You can tell they also had sense of humour, when they were in the kitchen.

The fact is, the conventual influence poured out of the convents and spred into the rest of Portugal. Some major examples would be ovos moles (soft eggs) from Aveiro and pão de ló (a light sponge cake).

As a curiosity: the Portuguese introduced pão de ló to Japan, when they were the first Europeans to reach that country, and today a traditional Japanese desert, called Pan is a direct descendant of this Portuguese desert.

Delicious fruits

If you prefer healthier deserts, you’ll have a field day in Portugal as well. Cherries are famous, for their size and sweetness around the city of Fundão, and the pinnapple from Azores is one the best in the world.

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