You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to

This pretty little thing is supposed to be Queijadas (or Queijadinhas), a Portugese dessert. Don't ask me how to pronounce it because I can't and all the websites I found on it seem to be written in Portugese. I found the recipe while browsing through Allrecip.com's photo archives. I was instantly drawn to it because not only did it look yummy, it received VERY mixed reviews. People either loved it or hated its guts. I had to try and see for myself.

The recipe makes 18, way too many for the two of us, so I cut it down to 1/3 and made six. While they were in the oven, my kitchen smelled like Beard Papa (the very famous Japanese cream puff place). I baked it for an extra 5 minutes because I know my oven temperature is a little low. They looked like little muffins while in the oven and poofed up nicely with just a tiny golden dome where the light yellow custard inside peaked out from the tiny cracks. As soon as they are taken out of the oven though, they fell (I heard they are supposed to do this). Risking burning my fingers, I pryed one out of the muffin tin and ate it standing in the kitchen. A very funny thing happened so I had to eat another one to confirm.

According to people's reviews, the Queijada should be crusty on the outside and custardy on the inside. Maybe it was because I baked it an extra 5 minutes, although crusty ousdie, my queijadas were not so custardy inside. The gooey inside did, however, remind me of piping hot rice cake. To be exact, battered fried Chinese sweet rice cakes (面拖糖年糕）! How bizzare is that! There is no rice flour whatsoever in the recipe, yet the texture and taste is exactly the same as a rice cake.

When Jason came home from his basketball game, I gave him one and asked him what it reminded him of, and he was in the same opinion as me! So rather than calling it something I can't pronounce, I will call this my sweet rice cake.

The next day, after reheating, the eggy custard flavor did shine through and it was not so much like the rice cake any more, but it was still close enough that I could make myself believe that it is.