Brazil 2016

While I'm waiting here for the highlights show, I have not idea how the race unfolded. Nonetheless, we celebrated this morning in the usual fashion...

Brazilian breakfast appears to come in a range of styles. Anything from a replica continental breakfast to cake to fruit. However, it might be more true that Brazilian breakfast is a literal implementation of the name 'café da manhã', which is 'morning coffee'.

Though I might cope with just coffee before leaving for the day, the girls would not. So we found a couple of options.

cheesey flour mix

Firstly, there were pão de queijo - small cheese rolls. I didn't find any advice on what these should be eaten with, so we didn't accompany them with anything. Made with tapioca flour (though the closest Sian could find in Cwmbran at 30 mins notice, was a gluten free flour replacement) and a large amount of parmesan, this was a risky recipe. Heidi liked the rolls served warm, but later in the day the cooled leftovers not so much. I felt they needed something like Marmite to contrast the intense cheesiness.

Work in progress

And then there was the more promising Bolo de Laranja - orange cake. A very sugary, oily recipe with fresh oranges baked in a bundt tin (the only piece of kitchen equipment we have had to buy for the breakfast tour this year). My baking skills are evidently out of practice, the cake barely rose, ending up crusty on the outside, dense and stodgy on the inside. Nice orange flavour though.

Cake (while it still looked promising)

The orange syrup that was drizzled over the top failed to sink in and rather gave an added crust. The best part was that the recipe made about double the quantity that I could get to sit on the top, so i drank the rest! It was like the yummiest sweetened orange juice.

Crusty cake

Natalya couldn't wait for the others to join us, so tucked into white bread and Port Salut