Sweet Belem, Petersham

Ivanhoe and Lenni raved about the Portuguese tarts from Sweet Belem so this bakery was included as a food pit stop in Petersham. Surprisingly, this was up the road from The Tiny Giant so our walk to here came to an end within 2 min.😂

Entrance of Baker

Bakery Sign

The cafe has a vast display of pastries, cakes and tarts that all looked mouth-watering:

Baked Goods

Tarts and Cakes

Their Infamous Portuguese Tarts

I ended up picking a sampler pack of various Portuguese tarts, including their original cinnamon tarts and ones with raspberry and passionfruit, and some baked chocolate tarts that Lenni loved:

Original Tray of Tarts - Original Portuguese Tarts ($3.50);
Portuguese Tarts with Passionfruit or Raspberry ($3.80); Chocolate Tarts

For some reason, the original Portuguese tarts (on the left) that I got didn't have the usual sprinkling of cinnamon on top. I ended up trying one of the original tarts and I have to say, it definitely needed the spice.

Bite off Original Portuguese Tart
(see what I mean by the filling being pale...)

This was the first time I have ever tried a Portuguese tart and I have to admit that I was a little disappointed. I always had this assumption that Portuguese tarts were similar to Chinese egg tarts but with a custard centre that gets the signature glossy, golden-brown topping when baked but these tarts blew that perception out the window. The tart filling was rather pale with vanilla bean seeds and was decidedly lacking in egg yolk so the filling wasn't quite a baked custard.

Don't get me wrong - the spiraled tart base of the Portuguese tart was uber flaky puff pastry and the tart did taste good overall but I rate the egg tarts from Hong Kong better, especially when they're fresh out of the oven (note to self: must refrain from eating them everyday when I travel there next time).

Portuguese Tarts 2.0

After sampling the Portuguese tart, I decided to get a few more tarts to fill in the gap in the box (so I can gift it to relatives) and also take a few extra home to personally eat later.

Closeup of the Portuguese Tarts

The chocolate tarts had a hard chocolate sable base with a rich chocolate filling and a sprinkling of desiccated coconut on top. These tarts weren't too sweet but contained lots of cocoa powder to give it a strong chocolate flavour.

Relatives gave the thumbs up for their tray of tarts so they were good for earning brownie points.