Rita João and Pedro Ferreira, writing in the Portuguese pastry encyclopaedia Fabrico Próprio: The Design of Portuguese Semi-Industrial Confectionery, say: “These places of faith and seclusion were often true laboratories of creation, where the religious dedicated themselves to rescuing old recipes, or to testing new ingredients from all over the world.”
In Portugal, nuns and monks started making the country’s first candies in the 15th century, when the colonial sugar industry in Brazil boomed. The country’s Catholic nuns took inspiration from the heritage of Islamic confectionery, and the abundance of egg yolks, to create unique pastries that are still known as doces conventuais (convent candies) in Portuguese.
Queijadas are small, sweet tarts, made with cream cheese such as Portuguese requeijão. The recipe originated at a convent in the south of Portugal and is popular in Évora, a Unesco World Heritage Site. Toucinho do céu – an almond cake made with pork lard – was created in the 18th century by nuns at the Santa Clara Convent in northern Portugal. Many of these sweets were adopted by bakeries and candy stores.
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Canelés, a speciality of the Bordeaux region of France, are small pastries baked in moulds with fluted edges, cooked to a deep caramelised brown and flavoured with rum and vanilla. They have a soft and tender custard centre and a dark, crunchy crust.
“One of the oldest stories refers to a convent in Bordeaux, where, before the French Revolution, the nuns prepared cakes called canalize, made with donated egg yolks from local winemakers, who used the whites to clarify their wines. Any records that might verify this were lost in the turbulent revolution, thus relegating the convent story to legend,” says food writer Paula Wolfert on her website, paula-wolfert.com.
The thimble-shaped canelé is believed to have originated from the Couvent des Annonciades in Bordeaux in the 17th century, initially using just egg yolks and flour (no sugar could be added, as that right belonged to a competing pastry guild). Later, sugar, rum and vanilla were added, and beeswax was used to grease the moulds, giving the candy its glossy appearance. Another story has it that canelés were created from spilled flour picked up on the docks.
In the early 17th century, nuns in Naples, Italy, were famous for their candies and each convent had a speciality. Most of the recipes were closely guarded trade secrets. In Sicily, nuns passed on the legacy of North African rule through the dessert called cannoli – tube-shaped shells of fried pastry dough, filled with a sweet, creamy ricotta cheese.
Another Sicilian speciality prepared by nuns is the sugar-glazed, breast-shaped cakes topped with cherry nipples called minni di virgini (virgin’s breasts), named in honour of St Agatha, whose breasts were cut off after she refused the advances of a vindictive man, having taken a vow of chastity .
Spanish nuns were the original pastry chefs. At the turn of the 16th century, the Spanish royal court outlawed Judaism and Islam, forcing conversions across the country. Many of the daughters of converts were sent to convents to prove their loyalty to Christianity. They baked their former Jewish and Muslim recipes, and over time, these became the signature pastries of the convents.
These convent pastries include shortbreads and cakes flavoured with spices such as cardamom and nutmeg. One famous convent candy is St Leandro’s yolks, made with only egg yolks, lemon juice and sugar, and which dates back to at least the 13th century. Another candy, from Seville, is naranjitos sevillanos: a ball of nutty marzipan topped with glazed orange made from fruit grown in the convent gardens.
Even today, many convents sell pastries and candies through what is a called a torno system – you have to ring a bell, place some money on the turntable, and spin it around. The nuns collect the payment, place the goods on the turntable and send it back to you. Many nuns are cloistered - meaning they do not interact with the outside world - which is why this system arose.
“These nuns are highly regarded, and people treat them with much esteem. Often nuns run into financial shortages, and people help them by buying their produce,” says Spanish food historian Almudena Villegas. Today, many of these convents have a website and a menu of their pastries and candies.
In Spain, turrón is a popular candy – a nougat typically made from honey, sugar and nuts. Today, it is found in two towns in the south of Spain – Jijona and Alicante, and many versions are made by nuns in convents.
Villegas explains: “The turrón, it is not really a candy whose origin relates to the nuns, but rather a product of the Mediterranean region, where almonds, honey and eggs were abundant ingredients to which sugar was added later on. The turrón is basically made with almonds, beaten honey and egg whites whipped up like snow. There are many places that claim its origin, but presumably it appeared in the 14th century in Valencia.
“Spanish nuns have produced a multitude of high-quality confectionery, such as pestiños (fried dough), torrijas (a version of French toast), and pastries of all kinds. It is because nuns took advantage of products that were sent to the nunneries as an aid to survival. Nuns instead, processed and sold them as more profitable end products.”
Bebinca, a caramel brown, traditional layer cake from Goa, India’s former Portuguese colony, is derived from Indo-Portuguese cuisine. Called the “queen of Goan desserts”, it is traditionally served in Goa at Christmas, and on special occasions such as weddings and feasts.
Joanna Lobo, a Goan journalist, says: “Legend has it that the Goan bebinca owes its origins to a resourceful woman of the cloth. In the 17th century, the nuns of Santa Monica Convent in Old Goa would use egg whites to starch their habits. To use the yolks that would otherwise go to waste, they added them to sweets. One nun, Sister Bebiana, created a layered cake from the yolks, using coconut milk.
“She made seven layers to symbolise the hills of Goa and Lisbon. When she offered this to the priests, they complained about the number of layers, so she increased the number to 16. In her honour, after her death, the cake was called bebinca.”
The exact recipe is a well-guarded secret, but bebinca is made with flour, sugar, clarified butter, egg yolk, nutmeg and coconut milk. The batter is spread thinly onto a grill and the layers are stacked. Making bebinca requires patience and a lot of time because every layer is cooked separately. There are home cooks in Goa who specialise in the dessert.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Heavenly desserts created in convents
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