About Us
If you want to know more about the history of the Bean Pastry (Pastel de Feijão), you’ve found the right place!
Our Story
Brasão is one of the oldest brands of bean pastries.
At the end of the nineteenth century, in the village of Torres Vedras, an illustrious lady, Dona Joaquina Rodrigues, had a recipe for delicious pastries, made with exquisite mastery, which she served to her family and friends.
Dona Maria had an idea and began to make the cakes to order, being the first person to market them.
However, the recipe was also shared among the relatives of Dona Joaquina, and thus a relative named Maria Adelaide Rodrigues da Silva, known among friends as “Mazinha,” or the “mean one,” also learned the art of making the bean pastries.
The gentle “Mazinha,” as she was known by all, married Mr. Álvaro de Fontes Simões, nicknamed Pantaleão, who decided to commercially exploit the sweets, which became very popular and began to spread far beyond the region of Torres Vedras.
Afterwards, local pastries began to make their own bean pastries, developing alternative recipes, but always with almonds and beans as core elements..
Shortly thereafter, a stepdaughter of “Mazinha”, D. Vigília, set up a new factory, which she christened “Brasão”, her married name.
By the middle of the century, the bean pastry had asserted itself universally as the sweet of Torres Vedras.
Having closed in 1960, the brand would later be acquired in the 1990s by Marques & Lourenço – Doçaria, Lda., a family-owned pastry company, and maintain the name “Brasão”.
To this day, the factory is located in Bonabal, a small village just outside Torres Vedras, where it continues to provide its customers with its delicious Bean Pastries, along with other delicious treats that were created along the way.