🍫 Brigadeiro
Brigadeiros are small Brazilian chocolate truffles made by cooking sweetened condensed milk with cocoa and butter until thick, then rolling the cooled mixture into balls and coating them in chocolate sprinkles. They are dense, fudgy and very sweet, and no Brazilian birthday party is complete without a tray of them in little paper cups.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 395 g sweetened condensed milk
- 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp butter (about 15 g)
- 60 g chocolate sprinkles for coating
Method
- Put the condensed milk, cocoa and butter in a small non-stick pan over medium-low heat.
- Stir constantly for 10–12 minutes until the mixture thickens and pulls away from the bottom of the pan in one mass.
- Tip onto a greased plate and leave to cool completely, about 1 hour.
- With lightly greased hands, roll teaspoon-sized portions into balls about 3 cm across.
- Roll each ball in sprinkles and place in small paper cups.
How to make it lighter
- One brigadeiro of about 20 g is roughly 75 kcal — decide on one or two before the tray comes round.
- Roll them smaller: 12 g balls give the same taste in more, lighter pieces.
- Coat in extra cocoa powder instead of sprinkles to cut a little sugar.
History
The sweet is usually linked to Brigadier Eduardo Gomes, who ran for president of Brazil in 1945; the story goes that his supporters sold the chocolate balls to raise funds and named them after his rank. Condensed milk was widely available in Brazil by then, which made the recipe easy to spread. Today brigadeiros are a fixture of Brazilian celebrations and are also sold in gourmet versions.
Count it in one photo
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →