What really stuck out to me, besides the bakeries on each street and corners overflowing with sweet and savory breads, twists, custards and tarts, is how food brings people together. Meal time is a social hour where you catch up over a miniature feast ranging from leitão with steamed kale, baked potatoes and a side salad to chanfana made in a ceramic caçhola with roasted potatoes, fresh bread with a hint of cinnamon and of course, with a nice vinho to wash it all down. These meaty dishes sound delicious, looked incredible, and garnered rave reviews, but being vegetarian, I just sniffed, smiled, and chowed down all of the scrumptious, non-meat sides.

It was tough to be in Portugal as a vegetarian, but I am so lucky that everyone tried to cater to my preferences, especially my family (though they did quite often ask me to just try a nibble or two of the leitão, roast suckling pig, for flavor’s sake). Although the entrees in Portugal are definitely meat centric, the desserts certainly are not, making them a HUGE staple in my diet while I was visiting. And I’ve got to tell you, I couldn’t have been more pleased with that outcome.

My family went above and beyond when it came to desserts, especially since I was such a huge fan. I feasted on homemade rice pudding, pão caseiro, pão de lo, pão de Pascua – let’s just say a lot of pão. And then there was the crispy, crunchy caramel almond cake, the bolo de laranja, and let’s not forget the natas! I was in heaven -, anyone would be. Yet there was something missing and I knew exactly what it was: Serradura. Directly translated as “sawdust,” Serradura is a simple-to-make dessert, requiring only a handful of crumbled Maria cookies, some heavy whipping cream, condensed milk and vanilla to taste. It is my favorite Portuguese dessert.

At every restaurant we went to, every bakery we stopped at, the homes we visited, and the grocery stores we frequented, I searched high and low for this dessert I love and associate with my Portuguese heritage. In the 12 days I was in town, I didn’t happen by one place that served this light and airy taste of heaven topped with crushed Maria cookies. At the end of the trip, with my family providing all of these tasty recipes for sweet and savory dishes and desserts for me to take back (and share with all of you!), I realized that my search for serradura was rooted in a taste for home. It had been 17 years since I had been to Portugal, but during those 17 years, a few times a month my family and I would go to our favorite Portuguese restaurant to feast, and I was notoriously known for ordering Serradura to top off my always enormously scrumptious meals. Serradura kept me connected to Portugal and it is incredibly delectable, so naturally I am obsessed with this sweet dessert.

When I got back to the States, and I settled into my routine again, the first thing I did was buy the ingredients to make some Serradura. After assembling my little glass, crushed cookies on the bottom topped with cream and more crushed cookies, I took my first bite and realized that the connection I had wasn’t just to Portugal – it was to my family. Now when I enjoy this heavenly dessert I think of my time in Portugal with my family, whom I plan to see again next year during Easter, my time growing up enjoying it at the table with my sister and the adventures I have had making, enjoying (the entire recipe many times by myself!) and now sharing it with you.

I love this dessert and am really excited for you to try it and incorporate it into you quick and easy arsenal for sweet treats. You’ll have to hold on a bit longer for the recipes of the other delicious morsels I mentioned being spoiled with abroad but don’t worry, I promise they will be worth the wait.

Bom proveito!

Serradura
Serves four.

Ingredients
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/5 cup condensed milk
2 tsp vanilla
120g (roughly half a package) Maria cookies

Directions
1. Crush Maria cookies and set aside.
2. Whip remaining ingredients.
Tip: Add more condensed milk to the cream or drizzle some on the top of the dessert for some added sweetness.
3. Layer in a glass alternating between the Maria cooking and the cream, finishing with Maria cookie crumbs.
4. Get a spoon, sit back and enjoy your little cup of heaven in a glass!
Tip: Add some fresh, sliced strawberries or other fresh fruit for a punch of color. For a punch of sweetness drizzle some of the left over condensed milk on top!

Bom Proveito!

If you bring Abe Piasek a pumpkin muffin, he will examine the crumb, taste and sniff the muffin…and then tell you exactly how to recreate it. His grandchildren call him regularly to request shipments of pumpernickel bread or instructions to make hamataschen. If Abe’s ability to deconstruct a baked good doesn’t awe you, then his ability to rattle off complex recipes on the fly will humble you.

Abe honed his skills at a variety of Polish, Swedish, German and Jewish bakeries and owned several of his own bakeries in California before he retired several years ago. However, becoming a baker was pure happenstance for Abe, who never once considered the profession when he was growing up in Poland. Few jobs were available when he immigrated to the United States during his early twenties, so he took the first job he found as an apprentice baker in Connecticut. Abe often worked at the bakery for twelve hours a day, he recalled, but he learned something new every day too.

Abe has been fascinated by the way different cultures introduced new breads to America during his career. There was a time when only the Jewish ate bagels and no one knew what a “flatbread” was. Today, however, we take for granted that strudels, Kaiser rolls and rye bread are sold in bakeries and supermarkets across the United States.

What does your family bake?

Abe’s Famous Rugelach recipe
Ingredients

For the Dough:
1 lb butter, room temperature
1 lb cream cheese
Pinch salt
Splash of vanilla

1.5 to 2 lbs of flour
3 TB sugar

For Jam Filling:
Any smooth jam (Abe discourages using blueberry jam, because the jam should be smooth)
Stale white cake crumbs (Leave a baked unfrosted cake out to dry for a day. See below for the easiest white cake recipe from scratch. You’ll never look at box mixes again.)
Cinnamon & granulated sugar, mixed (to taste)

For Chocolate Filling:
Small, unmelted chocolate chip pieces (preferably chopped up in a coffee grinder) (I used leftover bittersweet and dark chocolate from previous baking projects.)
Stale chocolate cake crumbs
Cinnamon & granulated sugar, mixed (to taste)

For the Egg Wash:

Yolks of one or two eggs

Directions
1. Mix together all ingredients for the dough except flour. Add flour and mix until the dough becomes stiffer than cookie dough. If you are concerned that the dough has become too stiff, mix in an egg.
Note: In contrast to other recipes that I’ve seen, Abe says not to worry about over-mixing or refrigerating the dough before rolling it out. I tend to mix in the flour a little at a time until it becomes stiff enough.

2. Divide the dough into separate hunks. Take a hunk of dough and roll out thin. Spread jam or sprinkle chocolate pieces onto the rolled out dough. Sprinkle stale cake crumbs on top, then cinnamon and sugar.
Note: Make like Goldilocks and experiment with the right amount of cake crumbs and jam filling. I sprinkled too little cake crumbs and added too much jam in my first batch, so the jam oozed everywhere when the rugelach was baking. In my second batch, I had the same amount of jam but sprinkled too many cake crumbs. The resulting rugelach became very dense, and the cake crumbs absorbed all of the jam. Spread just enough jam so it colors the dough, but not so much that the jam oozes out of the rugelach when you roll it up (in Step 4).

3. Use your hand to press the toppings into the dough.

Note: Abe recommends using a rolling pin, but I found that the rolling becomes too sticky with jam and cake crumb to be effective in the next batch of rugelach.

4. Roll the dough up. Pinch the ends of the dough in. Ideally, the rugelach should be cigar-sized. Cut into 1 inch strips.

5. Brush the top with egg wash and sprinkle with more cinnamon and sugar. For chocolate rugelach, do not sprinkle chocolate chips on top.

6. Bake at 350 F on ungreased parchment paper until golden brown. I used an ungreased SilPat. This should take at least 15 minutes.
Note: if you used too much jam and it is oozing out of the rugelach, the jam that has leaked out will tend to burn when you bake it, so watch the rugelach carefully.

7. The rugelach keeps well in the freezer up to 2-3 months (baked or unbaked).

Better than Boxed White Cake
(adapted from All Recipes)

Ingredients
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2 eggs, room temperature*
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup buttermilk (Substitute: milk. I used leftover buttermilk and almond milk).

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and sugar a 9 inch cake pan. **
2. In a medium bowl, beat sugar and butter together with an electric mixer until creamy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla, flour and baking powder to the mixture and beat well. Finally add milk and beat just until mixed in and batter is smooth.
3. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
4. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

* Forgot to leave out your eggs before baking? No problem! Place eggs in a warm water bath for fifteen minutes – the eggs will come to room temperature in no time.

** Handy tip: You can use the butter wrapper to grease your cake pan! After greasing, sprinkle sugar (rather than flour) to give your cake a great crackly exterior and avoid clumps of white flour at the same time.

Portugal

Octopi in Portugal.

Moscow, Russia

Think Russia is just cold snow and stale bread? Think again: a beautiful meal in Moscow.

Beer-battered fish and thick chips served in newspaper from Northern Ireland.

Fresh at the market in Spain.

Well, yeah, they’re pretty darn good. Everything on the menu looks so good, it’s tough to choose which pannekoeken (Dutch pancakes) to order. Sweet, savory, all delicious. Not to mention the large bucket of treacle on the table to sweeten the deal.

The pancakes are so large that you will have to stumble out.

When people think of London, they often think of Harrods and Selfridges.

One shopping area that cannot be overlooked is Old Spitalfields Market, one of London’s oldest markets. In addition to fantastic young designers, it is also home to many independent cafes and food vendors.

Right off of the Liverpool tube station, this market is worth a couple hours of browsing, munching, and…munching some more.

Wine served in ceramic cups at the Pulperia Ezequiel in Melide, Spain. Drink up.

Which cone? Which flavor?

The best ice cream in Paris – Berthillon of the luxury ice cream. It is worth waiting in line during the morning, the afternoon, and the evening.

Luxury, indeed.