Glossary
Glossary of sweetmaking
The vocabulary of Portuguese pastry: techniques, ingredients and concepts, from A to Z.
A
- Aletria (sweet vermicelli) Concept
- A sweet of fine vermicelli cooked in milk, eggs, sugar and cinnamon, typical of Christmas, akin to a rice pudding made with noodles.
- Almond Ingredient
- A nut central to the sweets of the Algarve and the convents, used ground in pastes, marzipan and fine confections.
- Anise (fennel) Ingredient
- An anise-flavoured seed used to scent the doughs of cakes, broas and traditional biscuits.
B
- Bain-marie (water bath) Technique
- Gentle cooking in which the vessel sits over or within hot water, used for custards and puddings that must not boil.
- Barriga-de-freira (nun's belly) Concept
- A convent sweet of yolks, sugar, bread and almond, whose picturesque name illustrates the religious origin of so many Portuguese recipes.
- Broa (corn bread/cake) Concept
- A dense bread of maize and rye flour; in sweets, broas de mel or Christmas broas are spiced little cakes with honey and dried fruit.
- Baking tray Technique
- A flat tray on which cakes, biscuits and pastries are arranged and baked; in old pastry shops it was made of tinplate.
C
- Chila gourd (fig-leaf gourd) Ingredient
- A gourd whose fibrous flesh breaks into threads when cooked. It is the raw material of chila jam, much used in convent sweetmaking.
- Carob Ingredient
- The pod of the carob tree, milled into a sweet, dark flour used in the Algarve for cakes and sweets, with a flavour close to cocoa.
- Cinnamon Ingredient
- An aromatic spice brought by the sea routes, ever-present in Portuguese sweets, dusted over rice pudding, leite-creme and pastéis de nata.
- Confectionery Concept
- The craft and the shop devoted to confits and sugar sweets — sugared almonds, candied fruit and boiled sweets.
- Convent sweetmaking Concept
- The body of sweets created in Portuguese convents and monasteries between the 15th and 19th centuries, typically built on egg yolks, sugar and almond.
- Chila (gila) jam Concept
- A stringy jam made from the flesh of the chila gourd, in a syrup scented with cinnamon and lemon. It fills pastries, turnovers and sweet folar.
- Candied fruit Concept
- Fruit confited in syrup until translucent and sugar-coated; Elvas is famed for its candied greengage plums.
- Cane molasses Ingredient
- A dark, thick syrup obtained from sugar cane, traditional to Madeira, where it sweetens the bolo de mel.
E
- Egg-yolk sweet Concept
- A cream of yolks cooked in sugar syrup, the base of sweets like ovos moles and the filling of countless specialities.
F
- Fine almond sweets Concept
- A family of moulded Algarve sweets made from marzipan, shaped and coloured to imitate fruit, fish and flowers.
- Fios de ovos (egg threads) Technique
- Very fine golden threads made by pouring egg yolk into boiling syrup. Used to decorate and fill sweets, and even savoury dishes.
- Folar (Easter bread) Concept
- A festive Easter bread, in sweet or meat-filled versions, sometimes set with a whole boiled egg in its shell pressed into the dough.
H
- Hard-crack point Technique
- A high syrup point (about 145–155 ºC) at which the cooled sugar turns hard and brittle like a boiled sweet.
L
- Leite-creme (custard) Concept
- A custard of milk, yolks and sugar, often scorched on top with caramelised sugar, close to crème brûlée.
M
- Marzipan Concept
- A paste of ground almond and sugar, moulded into fruits and figures, very typical of the Algarve and of convent sweetmaking.
O
- Oven Technique
- A heated chamber for baking; the pastel de nata needs very hot ovens (above 300 ºC) for the pastry to crisp and the custard to blister.
- Ovos moles (soft egg sweet) Concept
- A sweet of egg yolk and sugar typical of Aveiro, usually wrapped in wafer shaped as sea motifs (whelks, fish, shells). It holds a protected geographical indication.
P
- Portuguese rice pudding Concept
- Rice cooked in milk with yolks, sugar and lemon peel, finished with cinnamon. A homely, festive dessert across the whole country.
- PGI / PDO Concept
- European seals protecting products tied to an origin — Protected Geographical Indication and Protected Designation of Origin — such as the ovos moles de Aveiro.
- Puff pastry Technique
- A dough of very fine alternating layers of pastry and fat that separate and crisp in the oven. It is the base of the pastel de nata and the travesseiro.
- Pão-de-ló (sponge cake) Concept
- A light cake of eggs, sugar and flour with no leavening. In versions like that of Ovar it is deliberately moist and creamy in the middle.
- Pastel (pastry) Concept
- A general term for a small sweet or savoury pastry, usually filled, such as the pastel de nata or the pastel de feijão.
- Pastel de nata (custard tart) Concept
- A small puff-pastry tart with egg custard, famous in its Belém version, served warm and dusted with cinnamon.
- Pastelaria (pastry shop) Concept
- Both the craft of making sweets and pastries and the shop itself, central to Portuguese social life, where one takes coffee with a sweet.
- Pearl point Technique
- An early, light syrup point (about 105 ºC), at which small pearl-like bubbles form on the surface.
Q
- Quince paste Concept
- A firm paste of quince and sugar, ancestor of the very word 'marmalade'. It is sliced and eaten with cheese or bread.
- Queijada (cheese tartlet) Concept
- A small tartlet of fresh cheese or requeijão, eggs and sugar, famous in Sintra, Évora and Madeira.
R
- Road point Technique
- A firmer syrup point at which dragging the spoon across the pan bottom opens a furrow (a 'road') that is slow to close.
- Requeijão (whey cheese) Ingredient
- A fresh, soft cheese made from milk whey, usually sheep's or goat's. Sweetened and flavoured, it is the base of sweets such as the pastel de requeijão.
S
- Sugar syrup (the 'point') Technique
- Sugar dissolved in water and brought to different cooking 'points', decisive for a sweet's final texture.
T
- Tender (short) pastry Technique
- A soft, crumbly dough of flour, fat and water, with no lamination, used in pastries and pies. It yields a tender rather than flaky shell.
- Thread point Technique
- A syrup point (about 108–110 ºC) at which, lifting the spoon, the sugar runs off in a fine, continuous thread.
- Trouxas-de-ovos (egg bundles) Concept
- Sheets of egg yolk poached in syrup and folded like little bundles, typical of Caldas da Rainha. A convent sweet rich in sugar.
W
- Wafer Ingredient
- A very thin sheet of flour-and-water dough, the same as religious communion wafers, used to wrap the ovos moles de Aveiro.