Algarve Nut Sweet Bread
An upland sweet bread enriched with olive oil, spices and walnuts or almonds.
- Origin
- Algarve uplands
- Place
- Algarve uplands
- Region
- The Algarve
- Category
- Cakes & Sweet Breads
- Season
- Year-round
- Evidence
- Well documented
Bolo de Faca is a large sweet bread from the Algarve uplands. Sugar, margarine, lard, olive oil, eggs, walnuts, lemon zest, cinnamon and anise are worked into already raised bread dough; after another kneading and an hour's proof, the loaf bakes in a wood-fired oven.
It keeps the classic shape and pale-yellow colour of bread, with visible bumps from walnut pieces. Substantial and rustic, it serves equally as a treat, breakfast or afternoon snack.
- bread dough
- sugar
- margarine
- lard
- olive oil
- eggs
- walnuts or almonds
- lemon
- cinnamon
- anise
Dense and moderately sweet, with crunchy nuts, citrus, spice and richness from several fats.
Almonds may entirely replace walnuts; it is also called Pão com Frutos Secos.
At traditional bakeries, markets and fairs in the Algarve uplands.
Coffee, anise tea or goat's cheese.
It represents upland Algarve baking, where large bread-dough cakes contrast with the refined egg-and-almond confectionery of the coast and with fig sweets. It is also known as Pão com Frutos Secos, or bread with nuts. Turismo de Portugal presents it as an ancestral cake of the Algarve interior and confirms its bread-dough base with walnut or almond, anise, lemon and cinnamon; the source assigns no inventor or specific date.
Well documented
Identity supported by institutional, specialist or corroborating sources.
- tradicional.dgadr.gov.pt/pt/cat/doces-e-produtos-de-pastelaria/164-bolo-de-faca (opens in a new tab)
- visitportugal.com/pt-pt/content/alte-salir-e-queren%C3%A7a (opens in a new tab)
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