Viseu Viriato
Also known as: Viriato · Viriato Pastry
Viseu's V-shaped sweet bread folded with an egg-and-coconut filling.
- Origin
- Viseu · 1955
- Region
- Viseu
- Season
- Year-round
Viriato is a soft yellow sweet bread, 12–15 centimetres long and cut into a V. The risen dough is rolled, brushed and folded over layers of egg, sugar and grated coconut; before baking, a cut opens the two arms that evoke Viseu's legendary hero.
After ten to fifteen minutes in a hot oven it is dusted with icing sugar. The folds leave moist bands of coconut between light layers of enriched bread.
- type 65 wheat flour
- eggs
- grated coconut
- sugar
- margarine
- baker's yeast
- water
- salt
Light soft sweet bread with a moist egg-and-coconut filling and icing-sugar finish.
The traditional version uses coconut; some bakeries add cinnamon, while the registered Pastel de Viriato variation uses egg jam.
At bakeries and cafés across Viseu, preferably still warm for breakfast or a snack.
Milky coffee or tea.
The first documented Viriatos were served hot in Viseu on 24 April 1955 after technical demonstrations by a yeast company. City bakeries adopted the recipe and produced thousands, delivered at dawn with the bread. In 1995 a commercial variation using egg jam instead of coconut appeared.
Sources: tradicional.dgadr.gov.pt
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