This was really the challenge. “What's your favorite Christmas candy?” And since desserts always bring back childhood memories, family rituals, discoveries and learning, we asked nine famous chefs about the desserts that still make them drool today and that they still cherish on their table.
Chef Maicon Milo
It's inconceivable to talk about Christmas without immediately remembering the song “Pé de Moleque” by my sister Vanessa. She knew little about cooking, but what she did know she learned from our mother. At Christmas, we always had a house full of family, and there was lots of fun and games, but sometimes there were no sweets to “sweeten” the moment. My sister would take some ingredients, like condensed milk, cane sugar, peanuts, and some spices, put them together, mix them with great care and put them in the oven. The smell of toasted milk, the peanuts “screams Brazil”, everything is so creamy yet so crunchy.
Almost everyone ate it while it was still hot. Lots of love and affection in a sweet treat! For me this was the most famous “Pé de Moleque” I have ever tasted and I will never forget it.
Meranti Rooftop Bar; Sra da Rosa, Tradition & Nature Hotel
Chef Miguel Teixeira
“Pumpkin Dreams” without a doubt. With quotation marks why? Because when I was a child, the time when Christmas is truly appreciated, I spent it many times on the terrace of Os Montes, in the homeland of my grandparents, and there was this very beloved dessert called filho or pumpkin donut. The “dreams” came later, because someone remembered that she was cute and looked like a cloud.
In addition to being very good and also something healthier (diet advocates don't kill me, but it's true, at least it has pumpkin in it, it's not just sugar, eggs and flour), my grandparents grew pumpkin, which meant there was plenty of it available. In the past, we in the villages consumed what was produced.
Erva and Soul Garden Restaurants, Corinthia Lisbon Hotel
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