Delícias do Convento

Description: Small cakes prepared with egg yolks, almonds with skin, sugar and a slight touch of cinnamon. They each weigh about 50 g and measure 5,5 cm in base diameter, 3,5 cm in bottom diame-ter and 2,5 cm in height. They have a dark color and a less polished consistency than the other specialties of the house. The Convent Delights are sold in boxes, of 6 or by the unit, with each cake wrapped in a very thin sheet of paper. Both the wrapping paper and the cardboard boxes are enriched with a photograph of the Convent of Santo António da Lourinhã.

Region: Lisbon and Tagus Valley.

Particularity: Cakes in the shape of small cones, dark brown in color that is given to them by the almond skin.

History: The Convent Delights are part of the old Portuguese convent tradition, as they are based on the usual ingredients of religious sweets — eggs, sugar and almonds. Responding to the request of the parish priest of Lourinhã, eager to find a new way to advertise the Convent of Santo António, Mrs. Zélia Fortunato Pereira did nothing more than add a small innovation to the old recipe of conventual sweets — not to remove the almond integument, which gives these specialties a dark color. It remains to add that the Convent of Santo António da Lourinhã was founded in 1598 and restored from 1989 to 1993.

Use: Much appreciated as a dessert, the Convent Delights are eaten, out of mere gluttony, at any time of the day.

Know-how: Algarve almonds with skin (dark integument) are finely ground and incorporated into a mixture of eggs and sugar, to which a light pinch of cinnamon powder is added. This mixture is cooked in a very hot oven (whose temperature has a great influence on the consistency of this cake), in molds previously greased with fat.

Source: Produtos Tradicionais Portugueses, Lisboa, DGDR, 2001