Delicious Malassadas

Have you ever tasted a Malassada? Hmmm, if I am not mistaken, you have never heard of this gourmet food before. Basically, malassada means badly baked or cooked. It has a Portuguese origin and has reached the beautiful Hawaiian islands via immigrants from Lisbon immigrants.

So, it was in Hawaii that I learned of malassada. Ironically, this badly baked doughnut is beautifully presented in a local bakeshop in Hawaii. The owner of the Pink bakery had in his stands the most popular malassadas in town. Make that the only malassadas in Hawaii. No fancy, Leonard is the pioneer and only malassada baker in town. His bakeshop in Oahu is visited by holiday travelers all over the world. Every one wants to have a bite of the doughnut. The malassadas he makes are filled with fruit-flavored creams.

Originally, the malassadas began as malformed pretzels of flat breads with no distinctive shapes. Most of these breads are as big as a culinary plate. Wow! How can one possibly devour that? Some malassadas really look half cooked with the addition of artificial bubbles. Really, they look like malformed soaps. Anyway, malassadas these days have creamy centers and usually shaped like doughnut. Now that makes them look edible enough.