Casa Lapão's Convent Sweets: Tasty, Local & Handmade

In Portugal, as opposed to France, it's more about sweets rather than pastries. In addition, Portuguese pastries tend to use more sugar and egg yolks than French pastries, and they also tend to use more almonds and oranges. During my visit to Portugal, I sampled and enjoyed a variety of Portuguese sweets, including the iconic Pastéis de Nata, a type of egg tart. In addition, I visited Casa Lapão, a stellar bakery in the city of Vila Real, where I not only sampled their convent sweets but also learned how to make one of them myself.

Our visit to Casa Lapão was led by Rosa Maria Cramez (pictured above), the 4th generation to own and operate this bakery. With an abundance of warmth and passion, Rosa told us the story of the bakery, explained how it currently operates, and taught us how to make Cristas de Galo, one of the convent sweets. Plus, we sampled a few of their pastries, paired with a glass of Port wine.

Above is a photo of Rosa's great-grandmother, who was from Galicia, working in the bakery.

The origins of Casa Lapão extend back almost 100 years, to Vicencia Augusta Cramez, a bread kneader, who had a daughter, Miquelina do Carmo Cramez. Miquelina eventually married Francisco Delfim, a painter in the construction industry, who was nicknamed Lapão because it was thought he resembled a native of Lapland. At some point, Francisco decided to open a bakery, using his nickname, and locating it on Rua da Misericórdia in Vila Real.

Miquelina and Francisco were frequently visited by Delfina, a seamstress who had a sister in the Santa Clara Convent. When girls entered the convent, they commonly gave a dowry of sugar, so the convent became well known for baking a variety of sweets and pastries. Delfina gave the recipes to these convent treats to Miquelina and Francisco, who started making them at their bakery, which proved quite popular.

The baking area at Casa Lapão.

Casa Lapão continues to make four varieties of convent sweets, as well as plenty of other items, and you can check out their list here. The bakery only has 5 employees, all women, and they make all of these items by hand, an impressive feat considering the volume of their output. It is also impressive that they primarily use local ingredients. For example, they use about 4,000 kilograms of pumpkin each year. As the region of Vila Real was a poorer region, pumpkins were popular as they were easily grown and cheap, thus their use in the local pastries was common.

Rosa still owns, and uses, her great-grandmother's rolling pin!

These are the Pitos de Saint Luzia, filled with pumpkin and cinnamon, which a young woman traditionally gifted to her suit on the feast of Saint Luzia (December 13), the patron saint of the visually impaired. There is a legend that this sweet was created by a novice who used to fold eye bandages into a square with the points inward, and decide to make a sweet in a similar manner. These sweets also were an example of a common theme I found during my visit to Portugal, an illustration of the concept of the sacred and profane.

Casa Lapão likes to play with the names of their sweets, and Pitos is a slang term for the female genitalia, as it is thought there is some resemblance. Despite the sacred origins of these sweets, there is a splash of the profane with such slang. This dichotomy arose at several points during my tour and it seems very natural to the Portuguese. In part, it may be a way to show the Portuguese have a fine sense of humor, and are well grounded.

As for their taste, they were quite delicious, with a fine flaky pastry shell and lots of sweet, creamy pumpkin filling with cinnamon hints. They weren't overly sweet and there was a good balance between the pastry and filling. It certainly is an excellent fall dessert and would be a great addition to a Thanksgiving dessert table.

The Cristas de Galo ("crest of the rooster") received its name as it is shaped like a rooster's cockscomb. The pastry, filled with an almond and egg yolk paste, is baked in the oven. Again, the flaky pastry shell was buttery and delicious, with a creamy, rich filling with the fine taste of almonds. Another excellent sweet, and we learned how to make these.

Rosa started our lesson, using her great-grandmother's rolling pin to roll out the dough for the Cristas de Galo.

She already had the filling prepared, which though you might think there is pumpkin in it due to the color, there isn't. There are almonds, egg yolks and sugar in this mixture.

Once Rosa showed us what to do, we all tried to emulate her, rolling out our own dough, placing in the filling, folding the dough and then cutting the dough to give it the correct shape. We had plenty of fun, and once the pastries were baked, we were able to eat our results.

I'll freely admit that I need much more practice making Cristas de Galo, as my attempt didn't look too good. It isn't that difficult to make, but in my defense, I do very little baking. I still enjoyed myself very much and would repeat it again if I had the chance.

We also got to try the Bola de Carne, a pastry filled with ground meat, and it might have been venison. The pastry was flaky and light, and the meat filling was savory and spiced just right. This would make for an excellent appetizer.

It was a pleasure to enjoy the sweets with a glass of Ruby Port Wine

Across the street from the bakery is their cafe, where you can buy their sweets and pastries, either for take-out or you can dine in, enjoying them with a cup of coffee.

It is a casual spot, with plenty of photos from their history on the walls. It was closed at the time of our visit but Rosa let us inside for a look.

This is the cafe Menu, and you can see that the convent sweets are inexpensive, only 1 or 2 Euros, while a coffee costs less than 1 Euro. For such sweets that are homemade, prepared from local ingredients, and so delicious, this is a great value. If a similar bakery were in the U.S., I suspect the prices would be much higher.

As the cafe was closed, the shelves were mostly empty.

Many thanks to Rosa for providing us a fascinating tour of her bakery. Casa Lapão is a worthy destination if you travel near the Vila Real region, especially if you love sweets. There is true passion at this bakery, as well as plenty of hard work, and I appreciate that they use local ingredients, helping their community. We need more places like this in the Boston area.