On the Road - Jericoacoara (Pt. 4)

Last month, before Flavors of Brazil's excursion to Jericoacoara, we published a few posts about this isolated beach resort. One post in particular seemed to be very popular judging from the number of hits it received. It concerned a local resident of Jeri, who goes by the professional name of Tia Angelita (Aunt Angelita) and who is famous both locally and beyond the city limits for her delightful banana torte.

We were aware of her notoriety when we wrote the article, and when we published the recipe, which came from a regional cuisine website, it did sound very, very good. So when we went to Jericoacoara, it seemed imperative to try out her torte for ourselves.

There are no street numbers in Jericoara, and only the main streets seem to have a name. Directions tend to be in the "go up that way for a while, then when you see the laundromat on your left duck into the alley on the opposite side of the street. Follow that for a ways, then turn left on the first smaller alley you come to...." So when we asked local residents how to find Tia Angelita's bakeshop, we got general directional pointers only, even though everyone seemed to know her. No one gave us a blank stare when we said, "Which way to Aunt Angelita's?" But no one could give us precise directions either.

With a bit of perseverence (a virtue not easy to come by in the hot mid-day sun) and even more luck, we finally came upon a tiny sign in front of a fairly anonymous residential-looking house with a large verandah. Sitting in the verandah were three or four adolescent girls, gossiping about Justin Bieber, no doubt. We asked them if we had the right place and if so, could we have a couple of pieces of banana torte. The answers were yes and yes.

We followed one of the girls inside, where there were a few table, a counter, an ice cream freezer and a coffee maker. AND a tray of banana torte. We bought two pieces for R$3 each (about USD $1.55) and decided to eat them on the way back to our pousada, as it was very hot inside Aunt Angelita's.

The torte looked exactly like the photo we had published in November (it's published again below). It was slightly warm, whether from the oven or the temperature in the bakeshop it's impossible to tell. Bringing it to our mouth, the two unmistakeable aromas of cooked banana and powdered cinnamon hit us straight on. Once we bit in, they were the two principle elements of the flavor profile, but there was also a nice butter flavor in the bananas and in the crust, which had almost a shortbread consistency.

It was unanimously agreed that Angelita's torte lives up to her recommendation. We're not marijuana smokers, but there's no doubt that one slice of this torte would be heavenly relief for someone suffering an almost-terminal case of the munchies. It's great stuff.

RECIPE - Pastel de Belém

This recipe makes no claims to authenticity. It's not the recipe used at Lisbon's famed Antiga Confeitaria de Belém, where these sweet-egg custard tarts became famous. It couldn't be, since the recipe used there is a closely guarded secret, supposedly only known to three people in the world. (To read more about the history of this pastry, click here.) In fact, since it's not the authentic recipe, this one shouldn't even be called Pastel de Belém since that name is registered to the Confeitaria alone. The proper name should be the more generic Pastel de Nata (Cream tart). However, this recipe's source, a Brazilian cookbook called Cozinha Regional Brasileira - Rio de Janeiro names it Pastel de Belém, and most Brazilians would call it the same thing. So shall we.

Since this recipe is intended for amateur cooks and homemakers, it uses commercial ingredients, like frozen puff pastry and sweetened condensed milk, neither of which are in the original recipe whatever it is. However, these labor-saving ingredients increase greatly the chances that our readers might tackle these tarts at home. It's worth it, as they are delicious. And maybe, after making them at home, our readers who find themselves in Lisbon will make their way down to the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém to sample the real McCoy.
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RECIPE - Pastel de Belém 
Makes 10 tarts

1 package frozen puff pastry
3 cups whole milk
2 cups sweetened condensed milk
6 egg yolks
1 cup granulated white sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch
granulated white sugar for sprinkling
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Let the puff pastry thaw according to package directions. Preheat the oven to 400F (300C).

In a large pan, combine the milk, condensed milk, egg yolks, the sugar. Mix thoroughly. Put the corn starch in a small tea cup, then slowly add about 1/2 cup of the milk mixture, stirring constantly to avoid lumps, until the corn starch dissolves. Pour the corn starch mixture into the pan and stir again.

Put the pan on the stove, turn on the heat to medium and heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture begins to thicken. Remove from heat and reserve.

Roll out the puff pastry and cut out 10 circles, just the size that can fit into the holes of a non-stick muffin tin. Drape each circle over a hole in the tin, and gently press it into place at the bottom of the hole. Spoon in enough cream just to fill the cups of puff pastry. Sprinkle each with a small amount of sugar and put the muffin tin in the oven.

Cook for approximately 15 minutes, or until the pastry is browned and fluffy and the custard is semi-solid. Use a toothpick to check for doneness - if a toothpic inserted into the custard comes out clean the custard is set.

Cool in the muffin tin on a wire rack, then remove the tarts.

Serve, sprinkled with powdered cinnamon if desired.

Recipe translated and adapted from Cozinha Regional Brasileira by Abril Editora.

Portugal's Culinary Heritage - Pastel de Nata (Pastel de Belém)

The original

How can a simple pastry be both enjoyed in all corners of the world where there's a significant Portuguese cultural heritage AND have a recipe that's known to only three people in the world?? This seemingly impossible-to-revolve dichotomy has been successfully been bridged by a small Portuguese egg-custard tart called either Pastel de Nata (cream tart) or Pastel de Belém (Belém tart).

The tart's origins are in the epicenter of the former Portguese empire - the city of Lisbon. More specifically, they lie behind the enclosing walls of the Jerónimos Monastery in the city's Belém district. During the imperial epoque, monasteries and convents throughout Portugal made cakes and sweets, which they sold to the public to raise funds. The bakers of the Jerónimos Monastery were famed for making a small tart with a puff-pastry crust and a sweet, rich eggy custard filling. These were the original pastéis de Belém and their recipe was a closely guarded secret.

At the beginning of the 19th Century, many of these monasteries closed or folded up their pastry operation, including that of the Jerónimos Monastery. An enterprising Brazilian baker named Domingo Rafael Alves who lived in Lisbon finagled the recipe out of one of the monastery's former bakers and in 1837 opened a pastry shop called Antiga Confeitaria de Belém. Today the shop is owned by descendents of Sr. Alves and still specializes in the tarts that made it famous almost two hundred years ago and that have made it prosperous up til today.

At the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém three master bakers (the only three who are privy to the recipe) make the dough and the filling in a locked, alarmed and guarded room, passing them to assistants outside who form the tarts, fill them and cook them. Every day thousands of customers, many of them tourists, but tens of thousands of these treats, and eat many of them in the bake shop itself, served with a demitasse of strong Portuguese coffee.

Antiga Confeitaria de Belém, Lisbon

Long ago, the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém registered the name Pastel de Belém and legally only those tarts made on site, from the original recipe are entitled to be called Pastel de Belém. Any other similar tart, from anywhere else, is a Pastel de Nata. At least in theory, that's the case, but the law isn't universally enforced and one can find tarts called Pastel de Belém in pastry shops from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, to Luanda, and on to Malacca and Macau. In Brazil they can be found in almost all pastry shops and are a favorite mid-afternoon treat or part of a dessert buffet at a gala party or a wedding reception.

Chinese egg tart

It's at the most-distant reaches of the former Portuguese empire that these tarts have been most enthusiastically adopted. Throughout southeast Asia and southern China (and around the world of the Chinese diaspora) bakeshop shelves groan under the weight of sweet egg-custard tarts. I've seen them in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Vancouver, San Francisco and London. The crust is no longer puff pastry, it's more typically standard pie crust and the filling normally isn't carmelized and crispy as it is back in Lisbon but these Chinese bakeshop standards are still recognizably pastéis de Belém.

Obviously, the three people in the world who have the true recipe for Pastel de Belém  do not include us here at Flavors of Brazil, and so we won't be publishing the authentic recipe. However, in upcoming posts we will provide a very typical, hopefully almost-authentic recipe for a tart that might be called Pseudo-pastel de Belém, as well as one for the Asian version that's found in Chinatowns around the world.

RECIPE - Pastel Dough (Massa para Pastel)

Like many distinctly-not-healthy fast foods, the Brazilian pastel varies tremendously in quality from location to location. Pastels are like that little girl in the Longfellow poem - when they are good they are very, very good, and when they are bad they are horrid. A bad pastel has too little filling, undercooked or overcooked dough, and the dough itself is greasy and heavy. A real stomach-bomb. But a good pastel has the right quantity of well-made filling, wrapped in a covering that is non-greasy, flaky and crunchy. (To see how a properly made pastel looks, check out the photo below.) Que delícia!


While researching in books and online for recipes for pastel dough, I discovered that the real experts in the art of pastel making all seem to swear by the same "secret ingredient" which guarantees a flaky, crunchy pastel, though it's really not much of a secret. They all say that the reason their wrapping comes out so well is that when mixing the ingredients, they add cachaça, the Brazilian sugar cane liquor. On a Brazilian website that offers questions and answers on every possible subject, someone asked why pastel dough was improved by the addition of cachaça, and the answer was this (my translation):

It's because the dough, though fried, doesn't absorb as much of the frying oil, and consequently ends up crunchy and full of little air pockets. Try making the dough without adding  cachaça and you will see the difference. There isn't any change in texture of the dough or in flavor with cachaça, it's only when the pastel is dropped in the deep-fryer that it goes into action. Bom apetite!

(Do you think McDonald's uses cachaça in the dough for their pies? I somehow doubt it.)

So here's the standard recipe for pastel dough, with the obligatory shot of cachaça. As it's the alcohol that causes the dough to be less absorbative, I would think that other liquors, for example, vodka, would work equally well.
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RECIPE - Pastel Dough (Massa para Pastel)
Enough for 50 pastels

2.2 lb (1 kg) all-purpose wheat flour
1 Tbsp. salt
1 Tbsp. chicken broth
1 Tbsp. lard
2 Tbsp. cachaça
2 cups warm water, approximately
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Mix the flour and salt, then add the broth and lard. Add the cachaça to the warm water, and add to the dough in 1/4 cup quantities, mixing in thoroughly and stopping just when the dough forms a ball. Do not overmix or add too much water.

Form into a ball, then let rest for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, dough is ready for rolling out, filling and cooking as desired.

Recipe translated and adapted from website Tudo Gostoso, by UOL.