A short display of Portuguese Christmas sweets[1]
[1] I don't think "sweets" is the best translation but idk how else to say it, what I mean is "pastries and cakes", basically
Hello! This is very late (but tbh we eat the same stuff on Christmas and New Year's so ig I'm not that late)!!
I wanted to do this because it seems to kinda be in line with my Halloween folklore post and I want to share more stuff with you all! This one I know a little more about because I eat these things every year, but I promise I'll get back into folklore next because that's what interests me most. Please be aware that half of this is from my personal experience and may not be 100% accurate to most other people.
Bolo Rei (trans: King Cake)
image source: https://lmalimentar.pt/lojaLM/bolos-congelados/318-bolo-rei-cozido-1-kg.html
This is like, the cake people think of when they think of Christmas. It's some basic dough filled with nuts and sugared fruits. Then, it has more sugared fruit on top (I've tried to find exactly what fruit it is but every recipe just says "fruit" despite it always being very specific colours and the only place I could find that listed what it supposedly was said it was pumpkin and I don't believe it). This cake is inspired by the image of a jewel-incrusted crown and was created to honour the Three Magi. It's said that it was inspired by the French Galette de Rois but I've also seen people say it's similar to Italian Panettone.
Bolo Rainha (trans: Queen Cake)
image source: https://www.receitasdeculinaria.tv/receita-do-bolo-rainha/
For the cool kids who don't like the fruit part of Bolo Rei - this one is literally just nuts. This is also supposed to look like a crown but I can't find any source saying what it's supposed to represent, so I think it's just Bolo Rei 2.0. This one wasn't that big of a thing when I was a kid but it's gained a lot of traction in the last 10 or so years.
Pão de Ló (trans: literally "Bread of Ló" / "Ló's Bread", I'll explain in a bit)
There are two versions of this one but I'm gonna talk about dry Pão de Ló first.
image source: https://www.receitasdatiaceu.com/recipe/pao-de-lo-tradicional/
This is my personal favourite - literally my favourite cake of all time. I have never met someone who does not have this as their favourite Christmas food. This is a type of sponge cake you eat on both Christmas and Easter, although it seems it was originally just for Easter. This is one of those you absolutely can't make at home unless you're literally crazy because it needs to be baked in a clay mould with sheets of paper and I've heard it requires 24 eggs per cake (tbh seems unrealistic but Portuguese pastry is like 80% eggs so it's not that outlandish, and I'm inclined to believe it bc I've tried like 3 different home-made recipes with normal amounts of eggs and it never tasted right). The origin of the name is basically impossible to find because every source I see claims a different story, but "Ló" seems to be the name of its original creator. Also, this cake was brought to Japan during the Discovery Period and it's allegedly the origin of a Japanese sponge cake named Kasutera.
Pão de Ló de Ovar (trans: Pão de Ló from Ovar)
image source: https://iberismos.com/pao-lo-um-doce-com-muita-historia-iberica/?lang=pt-pt
Kinda like regular Pão de Ló but wet on the inside - the liquid-y part is egg. Its origins seem to be in conventual sweets (like, from a convent), which are known for using lots of eggs. But just like with its dry variant, there are a few different stories about it. Sometimes people argue about which variant is better, but it's really not that divisive. In fact, all the foods in this post often coexist at the Christmas table despite some being similar to each other.
Sonhos (trans: Dreams)
image source: https://claradesousa.pt/receita/sonhos-de-natal/
These are much simpler than the cakes. It's basically just fried dough topped with sugar (I've heard that Brazilians call them "chuvinha" aka "little rain" because of this, and I think that's kinda funny because most Portuguese sweets have sugar on top). This is kinda like a "base" because there are other sweets similar to it but with carrot or pumpkin on the inside, and I don't think there's much reason to get into them here - also I don't usually eat them. You can eat them dry or with syrup made with sugar, cinnamon and lemon/orange.
Rabanadas (no clue how to translate this bc google suggests "french toast" and I refuse to accept that)
image source: https://www.pingodoce.pt/receitas/rabanadas/
This is a simple yet effective classic. It was originally made to utilize stale bread people had lying around (I've seen sources suggest it's because bread is sacred to Jesus even if it's stale and so it's bad to waste it). It's made with bread, honey or sugar, milk, and cinnamon, although I've seen people replace the milk and honey with condensed milk. It has been recorded since the 16th century, when it was used partially for medicinal purposes to help people regain their strength, especially after giving birth (which... thematically appropriate but it still surprised me when I found out).
I hope you had fun looking at all this tasty food - because I certainly did and this is my blog.
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DP x DC Writing Prompt #5
Damian does not glance back at Bruce when he knocks on the door. Instead they both wait in silence.
After a moment, the door opens.
"Hello," Jasmine, Jazz, Fenton greets politely, unsurprised to find the Waynes on her doorstep. Damian's expression grows ever darker at this revelation.
"Hello Ms. Fenton, are your parents home?" Bruce asks, placing a firm hand on Damian's shoulder, to ground as much as to restrain. To his credit he does not shake it off.
"No, they're out of town for a conference," the eighteen year-old says, opening the door wider. "But I think you'd better come in."
Bruce would normally decline, but Ms. Fenton is a legal adult and he has already, even unknowingly, waited 16 years. Damian makes the choice for him, striding past the threshold.
"Please take a seat," Jazz says as she leads them to the living room. She ignores Damian's swinging head as he takes in the home. It is deceptively large, a 90s style house filled with modern furniture. The walls are bright, with purple and green accents that would normally feel garish but somehow work. The stairs leading to the second floor are lined with family photos that Bruce yearns to take a closer look at. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?"
"No, that's alright, thank you," Bruce says, taking a seat on the long plush couch. A men's windbreaker lies haphazardly thrown across one of the arms. A closed container of Oreo cookies sit on the coffee table next to a physics textbook open to chapter 16, half covered in highlighter and filled with sticky notes. There's a child's painting framed next to the tv, a handprint made to look like a thanksgiving turkey in bright blue.
For the home of experimental scientists, it is cozy and well lived-in.
Damian repeatedly glances at the stairs through the doorway.
Bruce clears his throat. "We were hoping to--"
"I've texted--oh, I'm sorry," Jazz says, having spoken at the same time. Bruce gestures for her to go on.
"I've contacted Danny, he should be here soon. He was out with some friends." Jazz explains. As she hadn't pulled out a phone in their presence, Bruce can only deduce they have some sort of camera at their front door. This also explains Ms. Fenton's complete lack of surprise at their appearance.
"So you know who we are." Damian says, the first words he's spoken since they arrived at the house and the longest sentence he's spoken since they arrived in Amity Park.
"I do," Jazz says, calm in the face of Damian's clearly simmering anger. Bruce trusts him not to attack Ms. Fenton, but he still watches him carefully.
"He told you about me," Damian says. It is the same question, but it is also not.
"He did," Jazz says.
Damian swallows. "I see," he grits out.
Jazz's neutrality slips and her face softens in sympathy. "Damian," she starts hesitantly, but before she can say anything else the front door opens.
A moment later Bruce's son walks through the doorway, and Damian is on him.
This is what Bruce hoped to prevent, but despite his numerous checks of Damian's luggage his son has still managed to smuggle a small dagger, which he now produces and swings in a calculated arc at Daniel Fenton's jugular.
Danny dodges cleanly, and dodges every swipe thereafter in a manner that speaks to continued practice long after his time at the League. Damian is a perfect product of his training, but it is up against Danny his flaws come to light. He is just as good as he always was, but Danny is better.
In a matter of seconds Damian grows frustrated and sloppy in his attacks, completely atypical for him. Danny takes Damian out at the knees and pins him down with one arm, pressing his face into the carpet.
"Calm down," he orders. His voice is deeper than Damian's at sixteen to his twelve, the accent that still traces Damian's words completely gone from his speech. Damian growls and thrusts his head back into Danny's face, meeting it with a sharp thunk. He rolls up as Danny recoils, putting distance between them. Danny glares at him from several steps away, hand to his forehead. Damian tosses the dagger into his other hand as he charges, and to Bruce's surprise Danny does nothing more than turn his face to the side, allowing Damian to draw a sharp line down his cheek.
Damian stops dead in his tracks.
"Are you done?" Danny asks, blood beginning to pool at the seam of the cut.
Damian's expression is stricken, eyes stuck on the blood starting to drip down his brother's face.
"I said, are you done, Damian?" Danny asks. His voice is cold.
Damian hears him this time, and he flushes red. "I--you--"
Danny sighs. He looks at Jazz, whose expression is back to carefully controlled.
"Are you alright?" he asks her. She nods.
"You left me," Damian accuses, standing there holding his bloody dagger limply.
Danny turns back to him, raising an eyebrow.
"You left me," Damian repeats louder, rapidly blinking.
"Yes. I did." Danny provides no excuse nor any explanation. His stance is unyielding.
Damian's eyes bounce wildly, shifting to Jazz and Danny slides smoothly in front of her, protectively. He looks at Damian warily, not as if he is his brother, but as if he is a danger. Damian flinches.
Hope is the last to die, Bruce thinks, watching as that last bit of hope Damian had is extinguished, the knowledge working its way through every inch of his body like ice in his veins. His eyes darken. He turns and runs from the room, the front door slamming shut not a moment later.
Jazz stands up, pulling a few tissues from the box on the coffee table. She presses them to Danny's face, cupping his cheek until he holds it himself. "I'm going to go get the first aid kit," she says gently. It is a thinly veiled excuse to leave them alone, and Bruce is grateful for it as she heads for the stairs.
They both wait until her footsteps have faded, taking each other in. Bruce looks at his mother's eyes and the sharp turn of Talia's nose. Damian's everything, four years older.
"You shouldn't have come here," Danny says, throwing himself on the armchair Jazz has just vacated.
"You know who I am," Bruce says carefully.
Danny glares. "I've kept your secret. She nor my parents know."
"I know," Bruce says. "That's not what I meant. You know who I am. And who I pretend to be. So you know I am familiar with masks."
"And?" Danny asks, looking vaguely bored.
"And so I can recognize when someone is wearing one. Damian will too, once he's calmed down."
Danny's expression sharpens. "No, he won't. Because you are going to go to back to whatever bed and breakfast you're staying in, pack up, hop in your private jet and fly him back to Gotham immediately before the League realizes you've gone. If they haven't already," he mutters.
"This is about the League then," Bruce says. "Do you not believe I can protect you?"
"I don't need your protection," Danny snaps, and watches Bruce actively extrapolate with a dawning resignation. "So this is the World's Greatest Detective at work," he says, slumping bonelessly into his chair, the first teenager-y thing he's done.
"Damian's in danger from the League," Bruce says. Danny glares from his slump. It's almost cute. "And as long as the League doesn't know about you, he's safe."
"Draw your own conclusions," Danny says, baring his teeth. Damian often makes the same face. "As long as you leave."
"I can protect him. I can protect you both," Bruce says. "Let me help you."
Danny closes his eyes. He centers his breathing in an exercise someone has clearly walked him through in the past. Bruce would bet money on the adoptive sister waiting patiently upstairs.
"Mr. Wayne. You are not my father," he says. "My trust in you extends to the point that I left Damian in your care, but that is where it ends. And that was when it was sanctioned by the League. By coming here you have endangered those sanctions."
Bruce disregards the sting, doubling down on his analysis. Talia had left Damian with Bruce well after Danny had left the League. But Danny speaks as if the decision had been his.
Or perhaps, Bruce realizes, it is not that Danny decided upon it, but that Danny allowed it to continue.
Bruce takes a second to review what Oracle had gone over with him before they left for Amity. Daniel Fenton had by all accounts, since leaving the League, lived a fairly normal life. His adoptive parents were eccentric scientists dabbling in the occult but their findings that bordered pseudoscience circulated a very niche community of like-minded eccentrics. The bulk of their income came from alternative energy, a more viable source of study that they'd veered harder into in the past year or so, a government contract with the EPA currently in the works. This had in part funded a vacation to an all-inclusive resort the family had taken that past summer.
Danny received average grades in school, above average in science and mathematics, declining sharply in his freshman year and sophomore year before evening out around the second semester. He had gotten into fights repeatedly with one student in particular, suspended for two weeks following an incident that resulted in a the student receiving a black eye. Teachers reported him to be highly intelligent but distracted and removed. They had recommended he be evaluated for an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. He had no social media. He had missed multiple picture days. The ones he had attended he was sneezing, or a blur of movement, even going so far as to fall off his stool, legs flailing. Bruce had drank up every last one as Barbara had waited patiently.
A normal life. A family vacation to Bermuda. Average grades.
His freshman year, distracted and removed. The same year Damian had arrived at Bruce's home. Masks upon masks.
"You have informants within the League," Bruce says. Danny, to his credit, has no discernible tell. But there is no other explanation. "What will you do, if they find out you are alive?"
"That is none of your concern," Danny says, but he might as well be saying whatever I have to.
He never stopped practicing, after all.
"If they go after Damian, it is my concern."
"And that is why you need to take Damian back to Gotham before they do." Danny says. "I will take care of it."
Damian had barely spoken since he had realized Danyal was alive. But Bruce had seen the reverence in his eyes as he looked at the file.
"الوريث الصحيح" he had murmured. The rightful heir.
"You are proposing going after the entirety of the League with no backup," Bruce says. "Even if you think they won't kill you, you won't win either."
"Maybe they will," Danny says lightly. "Kill me. That would also work."
Bruce inhales sharply. "Danny," he starts.
"Go home, Mr. Wayne," Danny says, pushing himself up with one hand. The other still clutches the wad of tissue to his cheek, partially soaked with blood. "Go take care of your son."
"I'll go," Bruce says, "I'll take him to the Watchtower. And then I'll come back."
"Mr. Wayne-"
"I should've come for you," Bruce interrupts. "Sixteen years ago. I should've come for you."
Danny's brow furrows. "You had no idea I existed."
"But if I had. I would've come. I never would've left you there. And now that I know, I am not leaving you now."
For the first time Bruce watches Danny be completely caught off guard. He openly gapes at Bruce.
"You would've died," Danny lands on, voice thin. "They would've killed you."
"Unlike you, I would've brought backup." Bruce says, mimicking Danny's lightness.
He's lying. Sixteen years ago he would've thrown himself at the League to save his newborn son without a plan, without a thought beyond rescuing his baby.
Danny barks out a laugh. "You would've laid siege to Nanda Parbat with The Big Blue Boy Scout?" he looks wistful. "That would've been rad."
Bruce sees his opening. "Danny," he stands, eye to eye with his son. "Let me help you."
Danny evaluates him. "The Batman," he says softly. "I didn't want you to come, then. I didn't need one more person I had to prove myself to. All I wanted was to live amongst the stars, in the quiet of the cosmos."
"You want to be an astronaut," Bruce says. At Danny's cocked head, he says without shame, "I read your essay on personal heroes. You wrote about Edward White. Ad Astra Per Aspera."
Danny smiles slightly, sadly. "It is a rough road."
"You can be whatever you want to be," Bruce says. "I won't stand in your way."
"Even if I want to be Danny Fenton?" he asks.
"Even then."
Danny sighs. "I don't need your help Bruce," he says. "No," he says as Bruce opens his mouth. He pulls the wad of tissues away from his cheek. Underneath the splotches of dried blood the gash in his face has cleanly knit itself together, a faint white line now all that remains.
"I don't need your help," he says clearly. He holds a palm forward, and a green fire grows from its center, until the flames are licking delicately up his fingers.
"I know The Batman does not kill. But I am not a Robin. I am something else entirely," Danny says, his eyes reflecting the green of the flames. Or not, as he looks up at Bruce, his eyes green all on their own. They are sad. This is why he stayed away, Bruce realizes. Not out of fear. Danny is not afraid. Danny is tired.
But for his brother, Danny will wake up.
"And If the League takes one step towards Damian, I will raze them to the ground."
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