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Portuguese Monastery Pastry

filipe

By filipe
in Spain & Portugal: Cooking & Baking

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filipe

filipe

Posted
Posted

During the last 4 days, up until yesterday, at this place called Alcobaça, here in Portugal (120km north of Lisbon), where there is a huge 12th century gothic monastery there has been a Monastery Pastries & Licquors meeting.

As one picture worths for one thousand words I'll leave you with about 9000 words...

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Filipe A S

pastry student, food lover & food blogger

there's allways room for some more weight

Carrot Top

Carrot Top

Posted
Posted

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Felipe - please insert one wow for each photo, at least.

The monastery looks like one is inside a huge beautiful cake that is floating in the clouds, with the pink color coming through from the wall hangings, the light reflecting off the arches and ceilings.

The costumes - are they traditional? Worn daily? Or is this specially for this gathering?

The colors! Truly divine.

The pastries look as if they come from an Arabic or Medieval basis. Do the monks (and nuns? or is it only monks that participate in the cooking?) make these on a regular basis to sell for profit that goes to the church? Are there specific pastries that belong to each monastery?

Wow.

Astonishingly beautiful. :smile:

IowaDee

IowaDee

Posted
Posted

This is the untimate food porn for me! "Wow" can't begin to cover it! Please excuse any typos, drool is seeping into the keyboard...

lapin d'or

lapin d'or

Posted
Posted

So how many did you try Filipe?

Is this an annual event?

My one book on the food of Portugal has quite a few sweet recipes; I will have to try some of them out now, but the egg thread recipe says it is very difficult to make at home. Are any of these pastries easy to make?

Thank you for the photos, they have really brightened my morning!

And made me hungry

prasantrin

prasantrin

Posted
Posted
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That's foytong!! I always knew that the Thai foytong ("Golden Threads", I think is the translation) was Portuguese in origin, but had never seen the original. Can you tell me more about it--name, origin, etc.?

Swisskaese

Swisskaese

Posted
Posted

OMG!!!!!

I have to go to this next year! You have to tell us when it is happening in advance.

Can you give us more info on some of the pastries?

filipe

filipe

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

Ok... I'll try to answer all your questions.

This is an anual event, this was its 8th edition.

There are monks, there are nuns, but most of the pastry makers there are professionals. It's open to everyone (who pays for his space, i suppose) who presents pastries or licquors made according to ancient monastery recipes and traditions.

The most common thing about this kind of recipes - because many of them have centuries of age - is that they're quite basic on the ingredients they use : eggs (mostly yolks), sugar, almond, nuts. I guess that I can say that more than a half of what was there was based on combinations of these ingredients.

I've tried a few different ones...although many of them are easy to find on a daily basis at portuguese pastry shops (jackal please PM me according to that subject, I'll help you with some places where you can go)

Eggs and different stages of syrup allow you to create a lot of shapes and to obtain several results. You can check for example my post on "egg-wraps"

Those you've called "foytong" are here called "Divina Gula" which means Divine Craving...

And then you have egg "chestnuts", "nun's tummies", "angel's throats", and so on... (a mix of porn & religious names...)

Filipe A S

pastry student, food lover & food blogger

there's allways room for some more weight

filipe

filipe

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
What the the ones with the walnuts on top?

Does the bright yellow color come from the egg yolks or from saffron?

All the yellow comes from the yolks :)

the ones with wallnuts on top are a mix of yolks, wallnut paste and syrup, glazzed and topped with a wallnut. Can't remember their name...

Filipe A S

pastry student, food lover & food blogger

there's allways room for some more weight

duckduck

duckduck

Posted
Posted

Very cool! Thanks for sharing with us, Filipe!

Pamela Wilkinson

www.portlandfood.org

Life is a rush into the unknown. You can duck down and hope nothing hits you, or you can stand tall, show it your teeth and say "Dish it up, Baby, and don't skimp on the jalapeños."

Chloe

Chloe

Posted
Posted (edited)

Can I add that the strange, sad looking cake that appears in several of the pictures is a sponge cake made with so many egg yolks that it really does simply sag in the middle :biggrin:

Typical recipes: 10 whole eggs, 30 egg yolks, 500g sugar, 250g flour; or 22 yolks, 4 whites, 250g sugar, 125g flour. Baked in a tin lined with thick white paper. The saggy mountain effect is also helped by a very hot oven to start with, then turned down as soon as the cake has risen. It should be almost liquid in the middle. Yummyyyyy!!

Chloe

(wishing Alcobaça wasn't so far ... the church itself is one of the most beautiful I know)

Edit to add the name of the cake: Pão-de-ló de Alfeizarão - now pronounce that if you dare :raz:

Edited by Chloe (log)
David Leite

David Leite

Posted
Posted (edited)

I thought going to my family's celebrations, where several huge tables are filled with desserts, was impressive. This is utterly, stupendously amazing. Thanks, Filipe.

Is this an annual event?

Edited by David Leite (log)

David Leite

Leite's Culinaria

filipe

filipe

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted (edited)
Can I add that the strange, sad looking cake that appears in several of the pictures is a sponge cake made with so many egg yolks that it really does simply sag in the middle :biggrin:

Typical recipes: 10 whole eggs, 30 egg yolks, 500g sugar, 250g flour; or 22 yolks, 4 whites, 250g sugar, 125g flour. Baked in a tin lined with thick white paper. The saggy mountain effect is also helped by a very hot oven to start with, then turned down as soon as the cake has risen. It should be almost liquid in the middle. Yummyyyyy!!

Chloe

(wishing Alcobaça wasn't so far ... the church itself is one of the most beautiful I know)

Edit to add the name of the cake: Pão-de-ló de Alfeizarão - now pronounce that if you dare  :raz:

That "strange, sad looking cake that has so many yolks that it really does simply sag in the middle" is one of the most common/well known pastries (along with the custard tarts (pastéis-de-nata) here in Portugal.

It's called Pão-de-Ló. "Pão" means "bread" and it relates with the sponge cake itself. "Ló" is the name given to the yolks cream that are sagged in the middle.

The "Pão-de-Ló de Alfeizerão" is the name given to the pão-de-ló made at this small place called Alfeizerão, which is like 15km from Alcobaça. But there are many other similar paõ-de-ló, then named according to the place where they're made (Pão-de-Ló de Ovar, Pão-de-Ló do Painho, etc). Anyway, every portuguese grandma has her own Pão-de-Ló. My grandma's one was great and mine is not that bad either eheh

Edited by filipe (log)

Filipe A S

pastry student, food lover & food blogger

there's allways room for some more weight

filipe

filipe

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted
I thought going to my family's celebrations, where several huge tables are filled with desserts, was impressive. This is utterly, stupendously amazing. Thanks, Filipe.

Is this an annual event?

You're wellcome

Yes, this is an anual event which occurs every year by mid November

Filipe A S

pastry student, food lover & food blogger

there's allways room for some more weight

Carrot Top

Carrot Top

Posted
Posted
Pão-de-ló de Alfeizarão - now pronounce that if you dare  :raz:

The Portugese language always sounds to me as if it were filled with kisses when spoken.

I can understand this more fully after gazing upon those pastries. :smile::wink:

miladyinsanity

miladyinsanity

Posted
Posted
The "Pão-de-Ló de Alfeizerão" is the name given to the pão-de-ló made at this small place called Alfeizerão, which is like 15km from Alcobaça. But there are many other similar paõ-de-ló, then named according to the place where they're made (Pão-de-Ló de Ovar, Pão-de-Ló do Painho, etc). Anyway, every portuguese grandma has her own Pão-de-Ló. My grandma's one was great and mine is not that bad either eheh

Could we talk you into sharing your recipe, Filipe?

May

Totally More-ish: The New and Improved Foodblog

  • 2 weeks later...
Carrot Top

Carrot Top

Posted
Posted

I just came across an old (Gourmet) magazine (1969) with an article on Portugese Egg Yolk Sweets.

The two most interesting to me were the fios de ovos (thread eggs) where a "tiny hole is pierced in an eggshell half, and egg yolks are strained through the hole in a long thread into a pot of bubbling sugar syrup" and the trouxas de ovos (packs of eggs): "sheets of sweetened eggs yolks rolled into cylindrically shaped "packs" and served in a clear sugar syrup. [. . .] A spoonful of strained egg yolk is dropped into a boiling sugar syrup and cooked until it sheets and sets. The sheet is then rolled up into a little bundle."

I also adored the name of yet another pastry - toucinho de cue.

"Bacon from Heaven". :biggrin:

mukki

mukki

Posted
Posted

Thanks for posting about this! What a great event to attend.

The emphasis on egg yolks and sugar reminds me of the yemas I bought at San Leandro convent in Sevilla. Here's a picture, which I was going to post in a Spain trip report, but never got around to.

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Carrot Top

Carrot Top

Posted
Posted
The Portugese language always sounds to me as if it were filled with kisses when spoken.

Carrot Top,

You gotta let me quote you. This is a great line. I have to add it to my book.

David

:biggrin:

Of course you can, David. Take it away with my pleasure and even a kiss or two.

(The more important question is, what book are you writing? And does it have Portugese pastries in it? Enquiring minds need to know! :cool: )

David Leite

David Leite

Posted
Posted
Of course you can, David. Take it away with my pleasure and even a kiss or two. 

(The more important question is, what book are you writing? And does it have Portugese pastries in it? Enquiring minds need to know!  :cool:  )

Obrigado. I'm writing a Portuguese cookbook, and, yes, it will have plenty of Portuguese pastries. :biggrin:

David Leite

Leite's Culinaria

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