All Saints Broas
Small cracked broas with almonds and an intense aniseed flavour.
- Origin
- Lisbon and Tagus Valley · All Saints season
- Place
- Lisbon and Tagus Valley
- Region
- Lisbon
- Category
- Festive & Seasonal
- Season
- All Saints through Easter; now also available at other times
- Evidence
- Well documented
Broas dos Santos are dry ball-shaped cakes about 3.5 centimetres across and twenty grams in weight. Their compact, crumbly dough is marked by deep cracks opened by the oven's heat.
Finely sliced almonds, yolks, flour and aniseed define their character. A hand-applied yolk glaze before baking gives them a golden-brown colour and small glossy patches.
- peeled sliced almonds
- egg yolks
- flour
- aniseed
- egg yolk for glazing
Dry, crumbly and highly aromatic, with dominant aniseed and small pieces of almond.
This page describes the small, dry almond, egg-yolk, flour and aniseed broa recorded by DGADR for Lisbon and the Tagus Valley. The same name does not denote a single national recipe: the ACPP archive documents a larger, yeasted Miranda do Corvo broa containing pumpkin, maize and dried fruit, while a contemporary 24Kitchen version uses wheat and maize flours, olive oil, butter and spices, topped with an almond. These are distinct regional families, not simple ingredient substitutions.
In Lisbon and Tagus Valley pastry shops, especially from November through Easter.
Black tea, coffee or fortified wine.
Traditionally they were made only for the All Saints season, from early November until Easter. Demand from Portuguese emigrants returning in summer eventually led many makers to produce them outside that calendar as well.
Well documented
Identity supported by institutional, specialist or corroborating sources.
- tradicional.dgadr.gov.pt/pt/cat/doces-e-produtos-de-pastelaria/169-broas-dos-santos (opens in a new tab)
- acpp.pt/acervo-mlm-beira-litoral/116-bolos-e-doces/3197-broa-dos-santos-regiao-de-miranda-do-corvo (opens in a new tab)
- 24kitchen.pt/receita/broas-dos-santos (opens in a new tab)
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