Brigadeirão vs. brigadeiro: what's the difference?

The brigadeiro everyone knows

Brigadeiro is the Brazilian party sweet: condensed milk cooked with chocolate until it pulls away from the pan, cooled, then rolled into small balls. It's a tray sweet, a birthday-party sweet, and each ball is already one portion.

What brigadeirão is

Brigadeirão starts in the same place but never gets cooked down to rolling stage. The mixture is blended with egg and baked in a water bath, usually in a ring pan. The egg is what binds it: in the oven it sets the sweet just enough to unmold whole.

The result is creamy and dense, somewhere between a flan and a stovetop brigadeiro. You slice it and serve it on a plate with a spoon — it isn't a finger sweet.

The base is condensed milk, chocolate and egg. That's where the dark color and the smooth cut come from: no flour, no crust underneath.

How to say it

Roughly "bree-gah-deh-ROWNG". The "-ão" ending is the Portuguese augmentative, so brigadeirão literally means big brigadeiro.

Which one for your table

• Sit-down dessert, plated, in slices: brigadeirão.
• Passing a tray so everyone grabs their own: brigadeiro.
• Never had a Brazilian sweet before: brigadeirão is the easy one to picture — creamy chocolate, served in a slice, like a flan.

Where to order one in Orlando

At Sweets by Paris, brigadeirão is $5. It's made to order with at least 24 hours' notice, for pickup in Ocoee, FL 34761 or delivery up to 6 driving miles from there.

For a bigger table it pairs well with the sweet jars, which are individual and give you one portion per person.