Balas Baianas – ‘sugar glass’ coated coconut candy
Did I ever mention how much I love Rio’s street markets? Hmm, only about 20 times in the last year I suppose… Still, I’m sure that anyone who’s had the pleasure will agree that they’re utterly awesome. I visit these feiras da rua at least 3 or 4 times a week and although most of the markets are fairly similar, there are always a few variations depending on which location/day of the week you happen to be visiting.
One of my favourite markets is held in Glória on Thursdays and that’s all down to the availability of a rather delicious bala (candy / sweet / lolly) (USA / UK / Aus). Regular readers will know that I am not a sweet-toothed person – when it comes to Brazilian ‘classics’ like brigadeiro and quindim, I tend to agree with Jamie Oliver – and yet this item of confectionery has me hooked. It’s a sweet, creamy coconut centre surrounded by a thin, glass-like coating of caramel-candy. Adriana, the woman who sells these balas, calls them Balas de Coco, but that name is also used for another candy which is quite different, so I’ll be sticking with the alternative term, Balas Baianas.
In the interests of being self-sufficient, I decided to have a go at making these sweets myself and it turns out they’re not that tricky.
Bala Baiana Recipe
Ingredients (makes around 40)
- 1 tin (320ml) of condensed milk
- 100g grated coconut
- 1 dessert spoon butter/margarine
- 1 egg yolk
- 150g sugar
- 3 tablespoons clear (spirit) vinegar
- Optional: sea salt flakes
Steps
- Place the condensed milk, coconut, butter/margarine and egg yolk in a saucepan and mix well.
- After mixing, heat on medium-low and stir until the mixture thickens and starts coming away from the pan.
After 5-10 minutes, the mixture starts coming away from the pan.
- Spread the mixture out on a plate to cool.
- Once the mixture is cool enough to handle, use a little butter/margarine to grease your hands, then take a teaspoonful of the mixture and roll it into a marble-sized ball. Repeat until you have used up all the coconut mixture. Leave the balls in the fridge or freezer to firm up for an hour.
- In a new saucepan, add the sugar and vinegar and stir to mix. Get your mixing done now, because once you start heating you shouldn’t be mixing or messing with the sugar mixture until it has completely dissolved.
- Heat the sugar and vinegar until it reaches the ‘hard crack‘ stage. If you have a thermometer this is around 150-154°C – otherwise you have to test it by dropping some of the sugar into a glass of cold water – the sugar should form hard, brittle threads. This is the only tricky part of the recipe – you have to get this bit right, otherwise the sugar won’t achieve that brittle glass-like quality you’re looking for.
Sugar heated to around 150°C (~304°F) – the ‘hard crack’ stage.
- Now you want to coat the coconut centres with the sugar mixture. Be careful because that sugar is seriously hot and will give you a nasty burn if you touch it. Take each coconut ball and dip it into the hot sugar mixture (either use a teaspoon or a cocktail stick). Once fully coated, allow some of the excess sugar to drip off, then place the ball on a greased surface or a piece of baking parchment.
- Before the balas cool, you might want to try sprinkling on a couple of flakes of sea salt – this isn’t part of the authentic recipe, but I tried it and it’s delicious!
- When the sugar cools, it should form a very thin, glass-like brittle coating. The balas can then be wrapped in cellophane or put into little cellophane-coated mini candy cups.
Not very beautifully presented I know, but these delicious sweet bites taste amazing and that’s the important part, right?
Seeing as it was Adriana who introduced me to these delicious sweets, I think it’s only right that I give her a plug. She makes a wide range of different candies and would be perfect if you’re having a party and don’t feel like doing all the hard work yourself. Adriana can be reached on 2 Rio phone numbers: 2293-8157 and 98813-5369.
I’ve had mixed reactions down here in Porto Alegre when introducing salted caramel and variations to friends and neighbours. Thankfully it’s been an 80:20% split in favour though it seems to be the Marmite of Brasil. They either love it or hate it. Great post and thanks to Adriana and you for sharing
80-20 is pretty good! Mrs Eat Rio is in love with salted caramel in all its forms (note for friends coming out to visit:
I especially loveShe especially loves salted caramel truffles). But I can imagine that it would freak out a few traditionalists. I also experimented with adding a little vanilla and rum to the coconut mixture, but to be honest I liked the originals best.Now I want to have a go at making these but I’m not sure I should be allowed to make the caramel. I once set a pan on fire melting sugar. Not a good experience…
This probably won’t change your mind about brigadeiros but have you tried adding Kirsch? It doesn’t do anything for the sweetness but it makes a nice treat for the adults.
Hey Andrew – heating sugar can cause all kinds of disasters can’t it? I remember accidentally dropping a piece of molten sugar onto the back of my hand once. Not a fun experience.
I haven’t tried adding kirsch but I like the sound of it! Had it with cachaça mixed in a couple of weeks ago and I liked the boozy twang – still couldn’t finish it though!
After studying the recipe I concluded this is probably too sweet for me (hell, when you find the highlight of the formula to be optional sea salt flakes best to just move on). Regardless, good of you to plug Adriana.
Btw, I know you probably thought balls in freezer to firm up for an hour or hard crack stage would derail me from issuing serious analysis of the topic at, well, hand ….(pause, breathe in, breathe out) but I am now dating a French philosopher hippie chick so such crass humor is no longer allowed. Especially given our upcoming spiritual retreat in Bahia. And ‘lolly’: c’mon Australia.
Ha ha! This post was an absolute minefield of double-entendres and I thought I mostly tip-toed around them… But I can see that your new gata da França is having a very good influence on you. Good work, stay strong!
Also, I hear you with that Lolly comment… ;)
These are gorgeous. And if they are relatively easy, I might just whip up a batch and gift to loved ones for VDay. :)
Awesome! I hope it goes well :)
If I were to make a `Things I Like Most About Brazil` list, the street feiras would be in it for sure. Believe it or not, when I came to Brazil, the feiras were a new thing for me. In the USA, due to sanitation and `food safety` concerns, another way of saying that the big operators were successful at putting the small operators out of business, street markets mostly disappeared decades ago.
Hey Carlos – street markets are just brilliant aren’t they? I love to visit them wherever I go. I how can boring homogenised corporate supermarkets or malls compare? I hear quite a few people from the US talking about farmers’ markets – is that not a thing? Or perhaps they’re more marginal than I had assumed…
Farmers markets tend to be seasonal, and they usually offer a far more limited variety of things for sale than what you see at a typical feira in Brazil. The thing is, federal and state laws, along with county and city ordinances, they all combine to make it super difficult for smaller businesses of any kind to compete with the larger businesses. Let me illustrate the contrast. Take any of the kazillions of small vendors, of food or any product or products, that you see literally everywhere in Brazil. Take that person and their enterprise to somewhere in the USA, any city or town you choose. Within a week of them setting up and starting to do business, they would be visited by various state, county, and city officials, who would want to see that they have all the business permits and licenses the laws and ordinances say they must have to operate that kind of business in that location. If they are minus any one of them, the next day the county sheriff`s office is there, with a court order, to shut them down and impound all their equipment and merchandise. If they have all the permits and licenses required, within less than a month the authorized city, county, state, and federal tax officials are showing up, to verify that said enterprise has all the required mechanisms in place to collect the different taxes they are required to collect and pay to the various entities that have the legal authority to collect tax from them. If any of the processes are not in place. guess who is showing up there very soon afterward, shutting them down and impounding everything? As Orwellian as it sounds, that`s exactly how it is. Big corporations and unions, hand in hand with governments, run the show in the USA. Who tries to buck them ends up broke, in debt, and in prison. Enforcement is REAL in the USA. It`s no coincidence that the USA not only has the largest incarcerated population. When you look at it in per capita terms, it is truly stunning. For sure Brazil has it`s minuses. But it`s also a place where, if you leave government alone, it`ll leave you alone. I greatly prefer that.
Hey Carlos – thanks for your comment. Interesting stuff. I often think about the positive (as well as well publicised negative) aspects of Brazil’s less than efficient bureaucratic systems. I’m sure Jorge Selarón’s staircase-based masterpiece would never have been made if the requirements for all the permits and licences had been enforced.
On the other hand, I’m in favour of people paying their taxes. But it seems that many countries put the emphasis on enforcing tax rules on the most sensitive members of society (small businesses and lower-income individuals) while being far more relaxed when it comes to big businesses and the rich.
Talking taxes, my personal opinion is, whatever the system that is in place that determines who pays what, the underlying philosophy of it should never be to punish anyone, or in any way discourage anyone from earning more money. This is why I am totally against income based approaches, well progressive ones anyway, the ones that increase the tax rate paid the higher the income. My question is why would we ever want to discourage anyone from making more money? I know some people`s answer to that is, because the more money people make the more likely they are doing something `wrong` to make it, so punish them for their `wrong doing` with progressively higher tax rates. That comes straight out of Marx type thinking, which could be summarized as `Hate anybody who has more than you`. Other people would answer me, `Well, we should punish them because NOBODY NEEDS that much money`. My response to that is, how can anybody appoint themselves to decide how much is enough, for anybody but themselves? I say, tax income, but with a straight flat tax. Everybody pays the same rate. Exempt the first N thousand from it, so as not to put extra burden on the poor and the elderly. Add to that a consumption tax, and again exempt the first portion of consumption that is basically what a poor or elderly person would spend on the basics. There you go. An approach that broadens the payer base as much as is fair and reasonable, basically does not allow evasion at all, is super simple, and it does not punish or discourage anyone.
Totally, totally delicious. I tried the recipe as is (good but very sweet); with cachaça (so-so); cachaça and pineapple (better) and with finely diced ginger, chilli, lemongrass and lime zest (a generous dessert spoon of each in half the mixture). The final being an ultimate flavour bomb and my favourite, though a little off-course for Bahia. As for those worried about the sugar/vinegar mix getting to the right temperature, as soon as it’s reached the colour in the pictures above – mine was slightly darker – you’re good to go.
And if you’re left with a pan and utensils varnished with unremovable, solid, burnished sugar – just fill it with water put back on the heat and the sugar will dissolve as it comes to the boil.
You did it! That’s awesome man! :D I like the sound of your flavour experiments too – I’ll definitely try that next time. Good call with the washing up situation too – I left the sugar pan to cool and then freaked out that the sugar would never come off as it seemed fully ‘at one’ with the pan. I arrived at your solution too and it works a treat. :)