Bolo de Bolacha (Portuguese Biscuit Cake)
- Prep
- 25 min
- Total
- 25 min
- servings
- 8
- Difficulty
- Easy
Bolo de bolacha is the Portuguese dessert that passes from one generation to the next: layers of Maria biscuits soaked in strong coffee, spread with a smooth cream of butter, powdered sugar and egg yolk. It doesn’t go in the oven, it takes 25 minutes to put together, and it gets its texture after resting in the fridge.
Recipe
Bolo de Bolacha
The old-style Portuguese biscuit cake: layers of Maria biscuits soaked in strong coffee and a fluffy cream of butter, sugar and egg yolk. No oven, simple, and ready in 25 minutes.
Ingredients
For the butter cream and assembly
Method
Making the butter cream
- 1Take the butter out of the fridge at least 2 hours before you start, so it's very soft at room temperature.
- 2Make the coffee very strong and let it cool until just warm.
- 3Beat the butter with an electric mixer for 5 minutes on medium-high speed, until pale and very creamy.
- 4Lower the speed, add the powdered sugar gradually and beat for another 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.
- 5Add the yolks one at a time, then 2 tablespoons of the cooled coffee, beating well after each addition, until the cream is glossy and smooth.
Assembling the cake
- 6Pour the warm coffee into a shallow dish. Dip each biscuit for 1 to 2 seconds on each side and lay the first layer on the serving plate, in a round flower shape or a rectangle.
- 7Spread a thin, even layer of butter cream over the biscuits with a spatula.
- 8Repeat the layers of coffee-soaked biscuits and cream (6 to 8 layers high), keeping back 3 dry biscuits and enough cream to cover the top and sides.
- 9Cover the whole cake with the rest of the cream, decorate with the reserved biscuits, crushed (or with coffee beans), and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.
A butter cream that doesn’t split
Three details make the cream:
Salted butter at room temperature. It should give when you press it with a finger, but never melt it in the microwave.
Beat the butter on its own for 5 minutes until pale. This beats in air and takes away the heavy taste of raw fat.
Coffee that’s only warm. Boiling coffee breaks the biscuits in your hand and melts the cream; ice-cold coffee soaks in too slowly and leaves the middle of the biscuits hard.
