Viseu Bean Pastry
A scalloped oval pastry with a moist white-bean and yolk filling.
- Origin
- Viseu · Beira Alta
- Place
- Viseu
- Region
- The Centre
- Category
- Laminated & Fine Pastries
- Season
- Year-round; common at celebrations and as a gift
- Dough family
- Short or tender pastry A flour-and-fat wrapper mixed directly without puff-pastry folds.
- Evidence
- Well documented
Pastel de Feijão de Viseu is a small scalloped oval pastry, roughly 10 by 5 centimetres, with golden laminated dough surrounding an open filling of white beans, yolks and sugar. A light dusting of icing sugar finishes the surface.
The beans are cooked, puréed and added to sugar syrup with yolks to form a soft moist cream. In contrast, the pastry is folded with margarine through several turns, rolled thin, cut and baked until crisp.
- wheat flour
- white beans
- egg yolks
- sugar
- margarine
- salt
- water
- icing sugar
A sweet, soft, moist filling with gentle yolk flavour against crisp laminated pastry.
Its scalloped outline, oval form and open filling distinguish it from closed bean pastries elsewhere. Henrique Sá Pessoa's home version uses bought puff pastry, lemon, butter and walnuts and encloses the filling in the pastry: it is a practical interpretation, not the production formula described by DGADR.
At cafés and pastry shops in Viseu, sold singly or in gift boxes.
Espresso, tea, late-harvest Dão wine or sparkling wine.
Its abundant yolk and sugar resemble convent recipes, but the municipal record reproduced by DGADR says no evidence of that origin has been found. The known story begins in the mid-20th century at the now-closed Pastelaria Santos. Former employee João Mendes Fontes Marques preserved metal moulds and know-how and resumed production in a family business; current municipal events feature him in demonstrations devoted to the pastry.
Well documented
Identity supported by institutional, specialist or corroborating sources.
- tradicional.dgadr.gov.pt/pt/cat/doces-e-produtos-de-pastelaria/1159-pastel-de-feijao-de-viseu (opens in a new tab)
- 24kitchen.pt/receita/pasteis-de-feijao-viseu (opens in a new tab)
- visitviseu.pt/noticia.php (opens in a new tab)
- visitviseu.pt/source/Viseu%20Doce%202025/WEB_Programa_Viseu%20Doce_2025_V3.pdf (opens in a new tab)
- duaslinhas.pt/2025/01/uma-saborosa-tradicao-de-viseu/ (opens in a new tab)
Pastries from here — The Centre
Catalogue image Ílhavo Piped Butter Biscuits
Regional buttery biscuits piped into deeply ridged rings and curves.
The Centre
Catalogue image Saint Friar Gil’s Saddlebags
The small saddlebag-shaped pastry created at Vouzela’s vocational school and recognised as an innovative sweet.
The Centre
Catalogue image Baixo Mondego Rice Pudding
Mondego Carolino rice and Gândara milk, traced with cinnamon.
The Centre
Catalogue image Arrufada de Coimbra
Coimbra's light, fragrant sweet bread, given by godparents at Easter.
The Centre