🥧 Queijada de Sintra
Queijada de Sintra is a small Portuguese tart with a thin, crisp pastry shell and a soft, sweet filling of fresh cheese, eggs and sugar, perfumed with cinnamon. The filling bakes into a dense, slightly milky custard with a golden top. They are sold by the half-dozen in Sintra pastry shops and eaten with coffee.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 150 g flour
- 5 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp sugar for the dough
- 250 g fresh cheese (requeijão or ricotta-style)
- 150 g sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tbsp flour for the filling
Method
- Mix 150 g flour with the water, 1 tbsp sugar and a pinch of salt into a firm dough, rest 20 minutes, then roll very thin.
- Cut circles and press them into small tart tins, pleating the edges up.
- Mash the fresh cheese, then beat in sugar, eggs, cinnamon and 1 tbsp flour until smooth.
- Fill the shells three-quarters full.
- Bake at 220 °C for 15–20 minutes until the tops are golden and spotted.
How to make it lighter
- One tart is a portion; pair it with black coffee instead of a sweetened drink.
- Use a lower-fat fresh cheese to cut fat in the filling.
- Reduce the sugar by a third — the cinnamon keeps the flavour round.
History
Cheese tarts have been made around Sintra for centuries, and they are often said to have been used to pay rents in medieval times. Today they are one of the town's best-known sweets, alongside travesseiros.
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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 →