ottawa foodies

Along the Connecticut & Rhode Island shore, you can often find Portuguese breakfast muffins on the menu as an alternative to toast or english muffins. They are easy to find in the grocery stores there too, but I have never seen them anywhere else. They are as thin and flat as a regular English muffin, but about twice the diameter, and when sliced, the texture of the bread inside is much more dense with fewer holes. They are also very sweet. They are great toasted on a flat top, or as a base for eggs benedict. Has anyone ever seen these in Ottawa?

No, but ... I want some right now!

I remember seeing a discussion a while back about bolos levedos açorianos that fit the bill.

Are these the droids you're looking for?

Bolos Levedos Acorianos

Have not been successful at finding them yet...not sure if that is what they are called or not.

I had never heard of these "muffins" and they interested me so I had a look online for info, videos and recipes, wondering if they were worth making. They aren't muffins as we usually think of them but more like the English muffin we do know. I made the recipe from this link www.foodbuzz.com by a New York blogger who had a Portuguese recipe translated. He says they are quite popular in New York restos used as buns (made in his home town of Fall River, Mass.) in high end burgers.
Anyways they make a nice alternative to toast for breakfast, split and toasted (bagel setting to toast the inside only), buttered up and eaten with a cup of joe or slathered with jam or honey. They have a very tender crumb with solid bottom and top surfaces from the stovetop cooking that would make for a good hamburg bun (without the lemon zest, unless you were making some Greek lamb burgers perhaps).

Thanks for clueing me in to these blubarry and Momomoto. I had never heard of them before and didn't see them in Portugal.

Sad to say the last one just disappeared.

thanks Andy! those are definitely the ones.

You should have included a cat in that picture for scale.
... and, you know, because it's the internet.

Maybe too obvious but has anyone checked the Portuguese Bakery or the Lisbon Bakery? (although it sounds like they are more American than Portuguese, kind of like English Muffins)

So what makes them different from English Muffins? They look exactly like the English Muffins my mom used to make growing up.

blubarry I thought they might be what you were looking for after reading the blog post at the link.

Rizak, unfortunately the cat was unavailable for the photo shoot - he was out chasing squirrels and birds, ghosts and goblins, and whatever critters were scurrying about in tunnels under the snow, as well as his own tail. My "muffins" were about 4" across, larger than English muffins, and similar in size I think to some I saw photos and video of, but some I saw were way wider.

zymurgist they look a lot like English muffins made the size I made them but they have a very different texture as blubarry notes in his original post, and these ones were flavoured with lemon rind and amaretto. English muffins are more yeasty tasting imo. The first bolo I had while still warm was soft and pillowy in the middle with a thin crustiness outside with a lovely lemon taste that lingered. I suspect that were the flavourings left out the bolos levedos would taste sweeter and less yeasty than English muffins with a lighter, less chewy texture.

And the ones I get in Rhode Island are about 5" diameter, and they flatten out a bit if you press them on a hot flat top to toast them.