Delicious Bolinhas – A Quick Recipe

How to Make Bolinhas

Let me show you step-by-step instructions on how to make bolinhas, the traditional Goan coconut cookies. What’s unique about this recipe is that it is a much quicker one as compared to the traditional recipe for these tasty Christmas cookies. In Portuguese, they are called ‘bolinhos de coco’ meaning little cakes from coconut. And that’s exactly how bolinhas taste. You’ll love them.

In the traditional recipe, the soft bolinha dough has to be rested overnight. My recipe requires no overnight resting of the dough. The resting time is significantly cut down to just two hours. So, following this recipe on how to make bolinhas will help you make these fragrant Goan coconut cookies in a much shorter time. Though bolinhas are a popular Christmas-time Goan sweet, they can be enjoyed throughout the year, either with a hot cup of tea, or as a dessert after lunch or dinner.

Bolinhas are slightly crisp outside, but soft inside, and are incredibly flavourful. Do make them for Christmas or any time you want to feast on something delicious.

Here is another traditional Goan dessert made with coconut – the super-tasty Goan baath cake.

Ingredients

2 ½ tbsp salted butter

180g ( ¾ cup + 1 tbsp) granulated sugar, powdered

2 egg yolks

200g (2 cups) grated coconut

200g (1 cup + 3 tbsp) rava (semolina)

Around ⅓ tsp salt

Yellow food colour or saffron (optional)

½ tsp ground cardamom

½ tsp grated nutmeg

Makes around 25 bolinhas

Procedure

1. Whip the butter in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon.
2. Add in the ground sugar and whip the mix.
3. Next, add the egg yolks and whip everything well. (At this stage, you could switch to using a whisk or hand mixer.)
4. Dry grind the grated coconut and add this in too. Mix well.
5. Mix in the rava and then the salt. Cover the mixing bowl and let the bolinha dough rest on the kitchen counter for two hours.
6. Mix again and add the yellow food colour. Mix the soft dough well so it’s uniformly yellow.
7. Divide it into two parts. To one part, add the ground cardamom and to the other, the grated nutmeg. Make sure these are evenly dispersed in the mix.
8. Grease your palms with a little ghee or oil and make round shaped bolinhas (the size of a small sour lime) with the cardamom dough and arrange these around 1 inch apart on a parchment paper-lined baking tray. Using the blunt side of a greased knife, lightly mark a cross on the top of each ball of dough.
9. Similarly, make oval-shaped bolinhas with the other half of the dough, marking horizontal lines on the top of each one.
10. Bake the bolinhas at 170 C (around 350 F) for about 30 minutes or till the bolinhas change colour slightly on top and the edges of the bottom of each one start turning brown.
11. The bolinhas will be slightly soft when taken out of the oven. After 10 minutes or so transfer them to a wire rack. Once cooled completely, store them in an air-tight container.

Enjoy!