Pastry Post-doc in Portugal: Escangalhado

The name of this pastry says it all. In Portuguese, escangalhado means “messed up” and this pastry is basically a chaotic creation, made up of puff pastry and egg yolk cream. The bottom layer is merely a square layer of puff pastry, on top there is a huge dollop of cream onto which tons of puff pastry shards are stuck, all topped with a flurry of powdered sugar. There is no elegant way to eat this treat. We basically used the puff pastry as chips to scoop up the cream. We saw this special treat at only one location in Lisbon, one of our favorite bakeries, Pastelaria 1800 (Largo do Rato 7, Lisbon, Portugal). Have you ever seen it anywhere else?