New Bedford Portuguese Bakery: Sweet Bread and Malasadas

A New Bedford Portuguese bakery is the best place to understand how deeply the city's food is shaped by families from the Azores, Madeira and mainland Portugal: golden sweet bread, malasadas, custard tarts and sausage-filled rolls. Go early, especially on Sunday and before holidays, when popular items sell out.

One regional roundup of local bakeries notes that some of the best-known have ended or moved, and small bakeries close or change hands often, so ask locally.

What is a New Bedford Portuguese bakery like?

Expect a long glass counter, a smell of yeast and sugar and a line that moves quickly. Staff often speak Portuguese with regulars and English with everyone else. Prices are modest, and many customers order by the dozen.

The range is wide: breads, rolls, sweet breads, tarts, cookies, cakes for baptisms and weddings, and savory pastries. The New Bedford food guide explains the wider cultural background.

What is massa sovada?

This is a Portuguese sweet bread, soft, golden and slightly sweet, made with eggs, sugar and milk and often scented with lemon. It is a staple of Portuguese-American households in southeastern New England. Loaves are round or braided, and at Easter they are baked with a whole egg in the shell on top.

Eat it plain with butter, toasted for breakfast or as a base for French toast. A good loaf is tender and pulls apart in layers. A magazine recipe describes it as a Portuguese sweet bread worth making at home, but a bakery loaf is a good place to start.

What are malasadas in New Bedford?

Malasadas New Bedford bakers make are Portuguese fried dough: a yeast dough, stretched flat, fried in oil and rolled in sugar. They are crisp at the edges and soft inside, best eaten hot. In Portugal and the Azores they are linked to Carnival, the days before Lent, and in Portuguese-American communities they appear on weekends and feast days.

Some bakeries fry them fresh on set days, so ask which day. If you want them, go early, bring cash and eat them within minutes. A cold malasada is a sad one.

What other rolls and breads should you try?

The family of sweet breads around massa sovada has many cousins, and the counters sell variations. Look for papo secos, crusty white rolls used for sandwiches and linguica. Look for broa, a dense cornbread. Look for pao de leite, a milk bread.

Ask what is fresh from the oven. A warm roll with butter is a simple breakfast, and a bag of rolls will feed a family. Freeze what you cannot eat in a day.

Which Portuguese pastries New Bedford shelves carry?

Portuguese pastries New Bedford counters carry include pasteis de nata, small custard tarts with a blistered top, queijadas, little cheese or sweet custard cakes, and sonhos, fried dough balls rolled in sugar. Cookies called biscoitos and rich egg-yolk sweets appear at holidays.

If you want one thing, order the custard tart with a coffee. It is the most reliable pastry and a good test of a baker.

When are the busiest times?

Sunday mornings, the days before Easter, feast weekends and the Friday before a holiday. Counters can run out of items by noon. Order ahead for holiday loaves where the bakery takes orders.

If a feast is under way, expect crowds, music and a lot of grilled sausage. The linguica and chourico guide explains the savory side.

How do you order at the counter?

Point, ask and be specific. Say how many you want and whether you want them in a box or a bag. For bread, ask whether it is from this morning, and for a warm roll, ask if any are just out. Staff are used to tourists and will explain.

Bring cash for small bakeries, since some prefer it, and have the bills ready. If the line is long, decide while you wait so you are ready at the front. Order a few extras to share with whoever you are traveling with, and a loaf for the road.

Can you build a Sampler badge on Portuguese pastries?

Yes, with two tags. Portuguese is a cuisine tag and Bakery is a kind of place, and each has a badge that begins at five different places. Rate the pastry by name, such as a malasada, a pastel de nata or a loaf of massa sovada, and give the bakery its stars. Warm a roll in the oven for five minutes and the crust comes back, so you can rate it twice. Toast a slice for breakfast, or use a stale loaf for bread pudding.

Whose bakery run are you following?

Eating your way across Massachusetts? The Food in Massachusetts page links every town we cover.

Follow friends and Home shows a This week with friends row of what they rated and saved. A friend who rated a bakery before Easter is a good guide to the Sunday line. Rate your own box when you get home, and keep the stops in a list. Get the Mosey app and rate the first malasada you try. The Cape Verdean food guide and the US guides hub have more.