Broas castelares

Portuguese typical Christmas sweet

To make this recipe you need:

- 1 orange peel

- 125gr of peeled and chopped almonds

- 150g of corn flour

- 75gr of wheat flour

- 3 eggs

- 400gr of sweet potatoes

- 50gr grated coconut

- 750 gr of white sugar

Boil the sweet potatoes. Once cooked mash until they are pureed. Add the sugar and bring the mixture to soft boil. Go stirring. Once it boils, add the almonds, coconut, orange peel and whole eggs. Wrap well. Then add the two flours, previously mixed. Remove from heat and let it cool. Once the dough has cooled, make small balls and give them the shape of bread. Place the broas, slightly apart from each other, in a tray greased with butter and sprinkled with flour or lined with parchment paper. Flatten them one at a time and brush each one with egg yolk.

Bake it on a previously heated oven to 220 degrees.

Et voilá! Your Broas Castelares are ready! Bonne Appetit!

Portugal is know alongside with all the wines and it’s typical Mediterranean cuisine also by the sweets and desserts… if you want to loose weight this can be the hell on earth to you! (Or for many a sugar heaven)!

Speaking on Heaven there is some special deserts that are call “doces conventuais”,in English: conventual sweets. Why this name?! Well all because they were originated from convents and monastery around the country! Some of this sweets have often the name of saints or of the convent that originally made then.

The convents welcomed for ages inside of its walls the daughters of the nobility and from the wealthiest families, who apart from their dowries of significant income, brought also eating habits and family recipes that given rise to an exquisite culinary preparations and desserts rich and sometimes complicated.

Until 1834 the Convents and Monastery had in Portugal another income that came from the state and many convents and monastery were built by Kings during the History of the Country... but at this date all of that was gone, and the many Religious Orders came to an end! So they had to find a new way of surviving without the state benefits, one of the ways found was to make that special sweets and sell then at fairs and other places.
Zealously the secrets of the compositions and methods of preparation were kept , the recipes were property of the convent and the nuns undertook a great deal, almost a vow , to conceal them for a lifetime. But like all the secrets in the world there is always "leaks" and some of the more easy ones (and also the cheaper) came to the knowledge of the main public and entered to the Portuguese traditions of classic seasonal desserts such as: “Arroz Doce” - sweet rice, “Pão de Ló” - bread-cake, “Aletria Doce” - sweet vermicelli and so many others.

By then the Portuguese sweets it won quite a reputation in Europe, sweets that are abundant in sugar and eggs. (calories alert!!! But soooo yuuummmmiii!!!) For nearly seven hundred years, this knowledge was accumulating inside the convents and evolving with new ingredients, a thousand-and-one experience and long practice of the nuns who devoted endless hours they work, patience and devotion.

Today thanks to the research of many scholars who "translated" the handwritten notes of many files of the monasteries, came out to the public domain the wonders (and endless drooling) of conventual desserts.

This is a sweet way of doing it in PT Style!

Information taken from:
http://www.gastronomias.com/doces/conventual.htm