Sonhos

Every Christmas Eve, Avó Leonor's kitchen filled with the smell of hot oil and cinnamon. She'd stand at the stove with a wooden spoon, dropping spoonfuls of dough into shimmering azeite while my cousins and I waited with powdered fingers, fighting over the sonhos still warm from the pan.

Sonhos. Dreams. Because that's what they taste like. Light as clouds, crispy on the outside, hollow and soft within, rolled in cinnamon sugar while still warm enough that it sticks to everything. They're gone in one bite. You reach for another before you've finished chewing the first.

The technique is choux, the same base the French use for éclairs and profiteroles, but we Portuguese were frying this dough for celebrations long before anyone thought to bake it. The magic happens when the wet dough hits hot oil: steam puffs it from inside, creating that characteristic hollow center, that impossibly light texture that earns the name.

No Portuguese Christmas is complete without a mountain of sonhos on the table. They appear on Christmas Eve, again on Christmas Day, and keep appearing until Epiphany. At Mesa da Avó, we serve them still warm, dusted generously, with coffee strong enough to stand up to all that sweetness. As avós sabem. The grandmothers know what Christmas tastes like.