Coimbra Poor Clares' Pudding
Also known as: Poor Clares' Pudding · Coimbra Yolk Pudding
A smooth, intense convent pudding of sixteen yolks, sugar, butter and orange peel.
- Origin
- Coimbra · Monastery of Santa Clara
- Place
- Coimbra · Monastery of Santa Clara
- Region
- The Centre
- Category
- Convent Sweets
- Season
- Year-round
- Evidence
- Well documented
Coimbra's Pudim das Clarissas is a low golden pudding in which almost everything depends on the balance between yolks and sugar. The reference recipe combines sixteen yolks with weak-stage sugar syrup, a little butter and orange peel, with neither milk nor flour.
It cooks in a bain-marie inside a greased chimney mould. Once chilled and unmoulded, it has a satin surface, a compact creamy cut and an even golden-orange colour. It is served refrigerated in thin slices.
- egg yolks
- sugar
- water
- butter
- orange peel
Very rich yolk and concentrated sweetness balanced by the citrus perfume of orange peel.
It is sold whole or in individual portions. The precise syrup stage and bain-marie time determine a firmer or creamier texture.
At Cordel restaurant and confectioners linked to the Coimbra Confectioners' Association; it can also be ordered whole or as individual portions.
Coffee, black tea or a fortified dessert wine.
The name honours the Poor Clare nuns of Coimbra's Santa Clara Monastery, a community connected with royal power from its foundation by Isabel of Aragon and renowned for sugar-and-egg confectionery. The Coimbra Region Gastronomic Charter places the pudding within convent creativity of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the very term ‘pudding’ entered Portuguese cookery.
Chef Paulo Queiroz recovered the recipe through historical research, returning it to ADOC confectioners and Coimbra restaurants. It was a finalist in the 2019 Seven Wonders of Portuguese Sweets and placed second in the 2021 European Food Gifts competition.
Well documented
Identity supported by institutional, specialist or corroborating sources.
- visitarganil.pt/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/carta_gastrono_mica_jan2022_compacto.pdf (opens in a new tab)
- cordel.pt/docaria/pudim-das-clarissas/ (opens in a new tab)
- visitecoimbra.pt/gastronomia/docaria-conventual-de-coimbra/ (opens in a new tab)
- coimbra.pt/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/CATALOGO_MOSTRA-DOCARIA.pdf (opens in a new tab)
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