Daily Life Dreams

In 1837, in Belém (a place by the tagus river in Lisbon) , near the Jerónimos Monastery (a Portuguese famous monastery), in an attempt to subsistence, the clergy of the monastery put some cake cream for sale in a pastry.
At that time, the area of Belém was far from the city, and its access was provided by the steam boats. The presence of Jerónimos Monastery and the Tower of Belem attracted many tourists that quickly get used to “pasteis de belém” the traditional Portuguese cream cake.

The recipe was passed exclusively to known pastry masters who produced them in secrecy, and it remains like that until present day.
Despite being a Portuguese sweet, cream cake is also quite common in Brazil, with a sweet marketed by the network of fast-food Habib's, and they could be found in many bakeries and pastries in some parts of the country, especially in the city of Pelotas, well known for its sweet of Portuguese origin.
The pastels of Belém represented Portugal in the initiative of cultural Coffee Europe, the Day of Europe in 2006 during the Austrian presidency of the European Union.