The Mouthwatering Confection Known As Malasadas

Last night we made a very fortuitous drive down to Old Navy in Waikele to return something and sampled a delicious Hawaiian treat. Old Navy is in a fairly large shopping center and in the parking lot sat a Leonard's Bakery trailer selling "hot malasadas." I'd heard about malasadas on the news, and on Fat Tuesday the news crews were all at Leonard's Bakery in downtown Honolulu because that's the day everyone goes and buys malasadas. Apparently Leonard's Bakery is famous for its malasadas, and now I know why. They're served piping hot, and the top layer is sugar-coated, paper-thin and amazingly crisp. Ensconed inside is a yeasty, puffy dough that almost melted in my mouth. These. Were. SO. Good! The taste kind of reminded me of a funnel cake, except 1 million times better. We bought half a dozen and brought them home for later. Luckily we ate plenty on the way home, so they were still hot and fresh and perfect. At home, they were still good but the fried layer on the outside hat lost a bit of its crispiness. I think next time we'll just get one each and savor it in the car.

Unfilled with a dusting of white sugar is the "original," but there were a several different flavors to choose from -- you could get them filled with chocolate, custard or haupia (coconut pudding), which is what we decided to get, but unfortunately they were sold out. They also come dusted cinnamon sugar or li hing mui sugar, which is a tart-sweet Chinese plum sugar. I think the actual Leonard's Bakery (as opposed to the traveling trailer) offers even more of a selection. For better (more moutwatering) pictures and a history of how malasadas (which originated in Portugual) came to be popular in Hawaii, go to to http://www.leonardshawaii.com/index.html