What is it about nuns that they feel compelled to mix eggs and sugar and pastry together and invent sweet treats? Convent sweets (Doçes Conventuais) are a big thing in Portugal, each region has its own specialties, but it is all versions of a theme. Mix egg yolks and sugar until a yellow paste forms and then shape, then that yellow paste is either encased in pastry or dough. Convents and Monasteries started to churn out sweet treats in the middle ages, when sugar was made available in Portugal through the Portuguese world-wide trade routes. Eggs play a major part in the cake making process, as egg whites were used to starch clothes, nuns habits and alike. Egg whites were also used to clarify home made wine and beer. What was left over was the egg yolk. So what do you do with all that egg? You simply add sugar. Nuns used their initiative and in the spirit of making money for the church started to sell sweets....