La dolce vita

In the short week that we've been in Portugal, we couldn't help but notice the abundance of "pastelarias" or pastry shops there are in every city, town and village we've come across... and they're always full of locals.

So what do you do on a rainy Sunday when almost everything is closed? You join the locals for a moment of indulgence because the pastelarias are open! After returning to Cafe A Brasileira for a big bowl of yummy vegetable soup, we fell off the vegan bandwagon and sat ourselves down at the award winning Pastelaria Briosa where Roch ordered a bolo formigo and some almendrado cookies to share.

The bolo formigo was a very moist cake that tasted of walnuts, coconut and chocolate chips. The almendrados are gluten-free cookies made with mainly almonds, eggs and sugar, and they have a wonderful chewy texture.

Coming out of the cafe, ohh sweet serendipity, we see a poster for a pastry show at the Antiguo Convento de Sant'Anna... happening today. How could we not go?

With determination, we trudged up and up and up the hill and eventually found the Sant'Anna convent. On display and for sale were pastries from some of the best pastelarias in Coimbra. We ogled and drooled at every table, tasted free samples or simply feasted our eyes. At Doçaria Paula Rosa's table, we even found gluten-free treats so as we left the convent, down and down and down the hill we skipped swinging our little pastry box of "bolo rançoso" and "toucinho do céu".

PS: Bolo rançoso is made with pumpkin, ground almonds, egg yolks and sugar. We mistakenly thought "toucinho do céu" meant touch of heaven but later learned that it meant 'bacon' of heaven! The name was so derived because the traditional version of the cake was made with lard. Thank goodness the modern version is more Esther-the-wonder-pig friendly!Read more