Desserts around the World: Pastéis de Belém – Portugal

When in Lisbon, one does as any tourist does and one visits the Pastéis de Belém bakery for a lovely delicious little custard tart. Sure you can buy them anywhere else, but we’ve tried others and the one at the bakery in Belém – with the long line of tourists in front – is definitely the yummiest. (They sell like a million a day, so don’t expect to find much love and care inside these pastries.)

Pro tip: Notice that you’re supposed to line up in two lines, while all the tourists line up in one line. Queue up there and get some old tourist lady really angry at you for cutting in line. Point annoyingly at the signs that say that you should line up in two lines. Then have that lady push in behind you so that she can get in front again. Fun times!

Pastéis de Belém

Clafoutis; or easy fancy French giant cherry pancake from the oven

French fancy-sounding desserts don’t have to be a lot of work. They can actually be super easy! The brains of NDSM offer you the following easy classic: Cherry Clafoutis. Because when it’s right, it’s right.

Your new go-to apple cake for easy pleasing and happy tastebuds

This cake is basic, but not in the BASIC way. It looks homemade and that is totally fine! As we say in our kitchenlab: rustic, classic and natural are just other words for homemade. Doesn’t it make you feel like home? (If you were priviliged enough to have had caretakers that made you cakes.) Anyway, now YOU can make this easy apple cake yourself!

Rijstevlaai done right (by professionals)

Ok, we get it professional pie baking people, you’re better at your job than we are at dessert science. You might remember this failed desserting moment in our long history – though, let’s be honest, you probably don’t, because we almost did not remember this one (since we got the flu right after). Anyway, you can buy these rijstevlaai’s at actual bakeries and then they look like this:

 

I know, so unfair. Why are people that get paid for it so much better at making desserts!

 

Desserts around the world: Spekkoek

Here is something good that came out of the Dutch colonisation of Indonesia: Spekkoek (or kue lapis legit). Wikipedia says:

The cake is very rich – a 20 cm × 20 cm (7.9 in × 7.9 in) cake can contain up to thirty egg yolks, 500 grams (18 oz) of butter, and 400 grams (14 oz) of sugar.

So, definitely not for people on diets. It is best eaten in small bits anyway, because it is heavy enough that you can eat one slice and then skip lunch. Not spoken out of experience or anything.

 

Desserts around the world: Onde-Onde/Jin Deui

This one really travelled the world. Originally a Chinese fried pastry, but bought in The Netherlands (probably made here too). So, this time around we present you a true international superstar dessert: Onde-Onde, also known as Jin Deui.

Look at how round this ball of rice flour is. And it’s completely covered in sesame seeds!

Look at this fried goodness. What could be inside!?

Ahh, yummy sweet mushy stuff! I’m thinking this is black bean paste, but they also come with lotus paste or red bean paste. Does this sound like I have no idea what I’m eating? Then that sounds very correct. #YOLO

Crushed it! Nuts and a Delicious Cake

In today’s research we evaluate the following hypothesis: Sometimes you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet. But that doesn’t really make sense in the world of dessert science, so our final hypothesis is: Sometimes you’ve got to crush some nuts to get yourself a delicious cake. Any nut will do, but for the purpose of this experiment, we went for walnuts. Perhaps the craziest nut? We paired them with a classic: chocolate. Because what could go wrong with chocolate!? Nothing. Nothing went wrong with the chocolate. I am not being sarcastic, it was completely fine.

Messy Vanilla Apple Pancakes

Apple pancakes sounded like a good idea. Kind of like an apple cake, but from a pan! Great ideas sadly don’t always end in great products. No one ever tells you that making apple pancakes can get super messy. I will hereby give you the cold hard truth: making apple pancakes is messy.

Chocolate Frosted Cupcakes

#TBT to that time you found these pictures on your camera and you sort of remember making these cakes, but not much else about them?

Are they regular cakes with chocolate ganache on top? Are they chocolate cakes? We will never know.

Lemon Cake 2.0 with Lemon Buttercream Frosting

Sometimes your cakes are so in demand that people want you to make the same one again. (And also you still have all of the lemons.) This scientist did not feel like eating the same cake AGAIN, so she created a variation of the lemon drizzle cake. Leave out the drizzle, add in the lemon buttercream!