Sugar-Coated Pine Nuts
Pine nuts built up with successive layers of white or pink sugar.
- Origin
- Alcácer do Sal · Lisbon and Tagus Valley
- Region
- Alcácer do Sal · Lisbon and Tagus Valley
- Season
- Easter; also available year-round
Confeitos de Pinhão are tiny oval dragees that retain roughly the elongated size and shape of a pine nut. White or pink and traditionally sold mixed, they hide a usually toasted pine nut beneath a smooth sugar shell.
The pine nuts are floured and placed in an oscillating pan. Repeated additions of sugar syrup build concentric layers until the desired size is reached. The exact formula and control of the syrup remain specialist confectioners' knowledge.
- pine nuts
- sugar
- flour
- food colouring
A hard, intensely sweet shell giving way to a small toasted, resinous and buttery centre.
Traditional dragees are white and pink; the pine nut may be raw or toasted, though toasted is common.
At confectioners, markets and regional-food shops in Alcácer do Sal and the Sado Valley.
Espresso or pine-nut liqueur.
Around Alcácer do Sal, where pine nuts are known as 'white gold', these sweets became associated with Easter. They were given to godchildren and used to honour so-called contracts after the Alleluia bells rang. Originally white, they later gained a final pink layer.
Sources: tradicional.dgadr.gov.pt
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