Mortágua 24-Hour Horn Cake
Also known as: Mortágua Horn Cake · 24-Hour Sweet Bread · Easter Sweet Bread
Mortágua's Easter horn-shaped sweet bread, folded to a point and slowly proved.
- Origin
- Mortágua · Coimbra Region
- Region
- Mortágua · Coimbra
- Season
- Easter · weddings; available year-round
Mortágua's 24-Hour Sweet Bread is a rich yeast-raised cake also called Bolo de Cornos and Easter Sweet Bread. Its dough combines flour, eggs, sugar, butter, olive oil, Port, cinnamon and lemon. After a long proof, it is folded and shaped like a horn on an oiled Portuguese-cabbage leaf.
The wood-fired oven marks the base with the leaf; while still hot, the cake is brushed with olive oil or butter for gloss. Its yellow crumb is close and fibrous beneath a toasted crust.
- wheat flour
- eggs
- sugar
- butter
- olive oil
- Port wine
- baker's yeast
- cinnamon
- lemon zest
- salt
- Portuguese cabbage leaf
Moderately sweet and rich, fragrant with lemon, cinnamon and Port, with a toasted crust and close crumb.
Also called Bolo de Cornos, 24-Hour Cake and Easter Sweet Bread; some makers finish it with olive oil and others with butter.
At Mortágua's municipal market, bakeries, restaurants and Easter celebrations, including Cerdeira and Trezói.
Serra cheese and Port wine.
It is Mortágua's defining sweet and belongs to the municipality's Easter rituals. The 24-Hour name recalls the old production cycle with traditional starter; its horn shape comes from the inherited actions of folding, cutting and forming the dough.
It also accompanied weddings: parents shared cakes from the oven on the eve, then offered them to those who threw flowers over the couple. It remains available at the municipal market, bakeries and some restaurants.
Sources: tradicional.dgadr.gov.pt · cm-mortagua.pt · visitarganil.pt
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