Fogaça da Feira Sweet Bread
Also known as: Feira Castle Sweet Bread
A votive sweet bread shaped like the keep of Feira Castle.
- Origin
- Santa Maria da Feira
- Region
- Santa Maria da Feira
- Season
- Year-round; especially 20 January
Fogaça da Feira is Santa Maria da Feira's emblematic sweet bread. Its enriched yeasted dough combines eggs, sugar, butter, cinnamon and lemon, then is coiled into a tall pyramid; four cuts at the top open into turrets recalling the town's castle.
Egg-washed and baked to a toasted crust, it keeps a soft, fragrant and slightly springy crumb. It is made and sold throughout the year, although its defining occasion is the Fogaceiras Festival.
- wheat flour
- eggs
- sugar
- butter
- baker's yeast
- cinnamon
- lemon
- salt
Gently sweet, buttery and citrus-fragrant, with quiet cinnamon, a toasted crust and tender crumb.
Sizes range from individual breads to large ceremonial loaves; the characteristic form keeps its pyramid and four turrets.
At producers and pastry shops across Santa Maria da Feira year-round, and throughout the town during the Fogaceiras Festival.
Coffee, black tea or a small glass of Port.
The fogaça is tied to the community's vow to Saint Sebastian during the plague of 1505. At the annual festival on 20 January, girls dressed in white carry the breads on their heads in civic and religious processions. Municipal sources also note earlier medieval references and the centuries-long continuity of this symbol of local identity.
Sources: cm-feira.pt · cm-feira.pt · visitportugal.com
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