Silves Fig-and-Almond Sweets
Also known as: Silves fig sweets · Little fig cheeses
Small moulded dried-fig and almond sweets, distinct from Queijo de Figo.
- Origin
- Silves, Algarve; an inventoried traditional name whose origin and first formula are unknown.
- Place
- Silves · western Algarve
- Region
- The Algarve
- Category
- Fruit & Honey Sweets
- Season
- No documented seasonality
- Evidence
- Well documented
QUALIFICA’s national list records Queijinhos de Figo de Silves under code C237, separately from Queijo de Figo, Ouricinhos de Figo de Silves and Figos Cheios de Silves. A University of Algarve dissertation reproduces that distinction among the region’s traditional products.
Cookidoo’s public page presents a contemporary formula for eighteen pieces using 250 grams / 8.8 ounces each of skin-on almonds, dried figs and sugar, plus chocolate powder, lemon, cinnamon, fennel, water and skinned almonds for decoration. The steps, however, are reserved to the service, and the page itself warns that the recipe was designed for specific Thermomix devices; it is not a public specification for the historic Silves product.
- Dried figs
- Almonds
- Sugar
- Chocolate powder, lemon, cinnamon and fennel in the Cookidoo formula
- Water in the Cookidoo formula
The Cookidoo formula indicates a sweet mixture of fig, almond, chocolate and spices; no institutional sensory analysis specific to the Silves product was found.
Heritage sources treat fig queijinhos, queijo and ouricinhos as distinct products but publish no technical differences. The Cookidoo formula should be identified as a contemporary Thermomix version, not an exclusive standard.
The inventoried name points to Silves. The reviewed sources provide no current, verifiable producer list or evidence of permanent availability.
Neither the identity sources nor the Cookidoo page fixes a pairing.
The reviewed documentary trail begins with inventories, not a creation narrative. Version 19.0 of the QUALIFICA list, revised in 2012, fixes the name, and a 2015 University of Algarve dissertation includes it among 65 Algarve traditional products identified from that list.
Neither source provides an inventor, date, first workshop or technical formula. The earlier history and exact chronology are unknown. These queijinhos are therefore not automatically merged with other Algarve fig-paste sweets.
Well documented
Identity supported by institutional, specialist or corroborating sources.
- eubrdialogues.com/sites/default/files/acoes/documentos/049xlix_lista_de_produtos_tradicionais_portugueses_v_19_0.pdf (opens in a new tab)
- sapientia.ualg.pt/bitstream/10400.1/8440/1/Tese%20Mestrado%20%20-%20%20Manuel%20Serra.pdf (opens in a new tab)
- cookidoo.pt/recipes/recipe/pt-PT/r57216 (opens in a new tab)
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