Two rich desserts you don’t hear about every day: Brigadeiros and Suspiro de Limeña (in translation A Lady from Lima Sighs), first hailing from Brazil, the second coming from Peru.
Brigadeiros are chocolate balls or bonbons made with sweetened condensed milk, cocoa powder, and butter. They are rolled in chocolate sprinkles. Suspiro de Limeña is a dessert on a similar side of the desserts spectrum: it’s made with Manjar blanco* or manjar de leche, wine-infused meringue, and ground cinnamon.
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*Manjar blanco is the Peruvian name for dulce de leche, the traditional South American sweet made from milk, vanilla bean and sugar, which are simmered until becoming thick and rich.
Let’s start with making Suspiro de Limeña
You can make Suspiro de Limeña with commercially produced Manjar blanco, but if you want to explore this dessert in its entirety, why not make the custard at home?
Follow the recipe below for an easy way to prepare Manjar Blanco and remember you can use the custard for other desserts too and to fill pastries.
- Have the following ingredients ready: ¼ cup rice, 10 cups whole milk, 2 ½ cups sugar, and a pinch of salt.
Traditionally, there are two ways to make Manjar Blanco. This recipe calls for rice, which is often added to the industrially produced sauce, but another way to make is with milk, sugar, and cinnamon.
- Instructions: Place the rice in water and allow it to soak for 2 days, and then rinse and drain the rice. Using a blender or a food processor, blend the rice with 1 cup of whole milk. Put the ingredients – the blended rice, the rest of the milk, the sugar and the salt in a medium-sized pot and bring to a boil.
Once starting to boil, reduce the heat to medium low and cook the sauce until becoming thick and the color changes to caramel. Approximate cooking time is 3 hours and stirring often is a must to prevent the milk from sticking to the pot.
Now that we have our Manjar blanco, Suspiro de Limeña is a lot easier to prepare. The next ingredient to make is the wine-infused meringue.
- Ingredients: ¼ cup sugar, ¼ cup white port wine.
- Instructions: Combine the sugar and the port wine in a small saucepan and bring to a boil stirring until the sugar dissolves. Boil up to 7 minutes or until the consistency is syrup-like.
- For the meringue: beat 3 egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff and slowly begin to pour the port syrup incorporating gradually and beating until the meringue has cooled.
Assemble Suspiro de Limeña in smaller size containers because this dessert is quite rich and will have everyone sighing from too much indulgence. Pour the Manjar blanco pudding first, then spoon the meringue atop, and finally sprinkle with ground cinnamon.
Now let’s see about those Brigadeiros
Brigadeiros are bite-size chocolate balls extremely popular throughout Brazil where they originate. They were first made in the 1940s, but although a more recent dessert, it’s one of the most consumed.
- Ingredients: 1 14-oz can of sweetened condensed milk, ¼ cup cocoa powder, 2 tbsp softened unsalted butter plus a little extra for greasing, 1 tsp pure vanilla extract, chocolate sprinkles.
- Instructions: Combine the condensed milk and the cocoa powder until homogeneous, and then stir in the softened butter. Cook the mixture in a non-stick saucepan until thick enough, usually up to 8 minutes. Remove from heat and add the vanilla extract.
Spread the mixture onto a greased plate and let cool. With your hands greased, take 1 tbsp mixture at a time and roll into balls, then dredge each bonbon in chocolate sprinkles so that they cover all sides.
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Brigadeiros can be stored at room temperature for up to 2 days.