A Sweet Treat for the Fall: Brazilian Brigadeiro

A couple of weeks into the Fall semester and I bet you are already a little stressed––I certainly am. So, here is a little treat for you to reward yourself with at the end of a hard week: the famous Brigadeiro, a Brazilian chocolate ball. 

The Brigadeiro is the most famous (and delicious) Brazilian sweet. It is made of sweetened condensed milk and chocolate powder rolled into a little ball and coated with chocolate sprinkles. You can also eat it with a spoon straight from the pot. Brigadeiros are a predominant part of a Brazilian birthday celebration. The little chocolate balls are served alongside cake and are present in almost every birthday party in Brazil. 

The Brigadeiro’s popularity in Brazil started back in 1945, as a result of a political campaign. After the end of the Second World War, Brazil was undergoing a redemocratization process and a presidential election was scheduled  to happen. One of the candidates was Brigadeiro Eduardo Gomes, a brigadier military officer. 

To promote his campaign, women who supported him started hosting tea parties and other food related events. It was one of these women, Dona Heloisa Nabuco de Oliveira, who created the Brigadeiro. She brought the sweet treat to one of these parties and named it Brigadeiro after the rank of the presidential candidate. In the end, Gomes did not win the election, but, instead, the Brigadeiro treat conquered the entire country. 

Now enough with the history of the brigadeiro, let’s get to the point. Here is how you can make this delicious chocolate treat at home, courtesy of Nestlé:

The ingredients you will need are: 

• one can of sweetened condensed milk;
• three tablespoons of sweetened chocolate powder
• one tablespoon of butter
• one cup of chocolate sprinkles 

First, you add the condensed milk, the chocolate powder and the butter to a pot. Mix them all well and put it on low heat. Keep stirring until you get to the perfect consistency, which usually takes around ten minutes. 

The perfect boiling point for the brigadeiro is when you move the pan around and the brigadeiro peels away from the pan easily. That’s when it is ready for you to roll it up. But first, you need to let it cool so you don’t burn yourself. 

When the dough has cooled you can begin taking spoonfuls and using your hands to roll the dough into little balls. Tip: use some butter or margarine on your hands so that the dough doesn’t stick to you

Now that you have the balls, you can roll them on a plate with sprinkles and put them into cute little paper cups. If you want to skip all this extra work of rolling it into balls, you can just get a spoon and go for it! It’s my favourite way to eat brigadeiro, actually! 

So there you go, now you have a delicious, new, sweet treat (directly from Brazil) for you to try when you need a little sugar in your life!