The Best (and the Meh) of Portugal's Bola de Berlim Fillings
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- 5 min read
The sand is hot enough to burn your feet. Somewhere down the beach, a voice cuts through the waves and umbrella chatter: "Olhá bolinha!" — look at the little donut. A cooler swings into view and inside it: rows of golden, sugar-dusted bolas de berlim, still warm.
If you've spent any summer days on a Portuguese beach, you know this moment. The one where you savor a seaside bola de berlim as the sun dries the ocean’s salty drips off your back. If you haven't — welcome. You're about to understand why we take this donut so seriously.
A German Walks Into Portugal…
Italy has the bombolone. Berlin has the berliner. The U.S. has the jelly donut. Portugal has the bola de berlim — and biases aside (kind of), it's the best of the bunch.
Its name quickly gives away the donut's German roots. The story goes that a Jewish family fleeing Germany during World War II settled in Portugal and started selling them to make ends meet, sticking at first to the traditional Berliner: a soft, sugar-coated donut filled with fruit jam. But jam didn't win over the Portuguese palate. Local bakeries swapped it for creme de ovos — the rich egg-yolk custard that shows up everywhere in Portuguese pastry — and the rest is history.
Today you'll find bolas de berlim in nearly every café and pastelaria, right alongside the pastel de nata. But unlike the nata, it's also a beach food, hand-delivered by vendors carrying coolers up and down the sand, each one trying to outshine the rest. We've heard everything from custom jingles to "Olhá sexy bolinha," usually followed by an unsolicited (and unverified) pitch on how the bola de berlim doesn't make you fat. True story.
Photo taken by liveLUSO Photo taken by liveLUSO Photo taken by liveLUSO
Once a vendor approaches, the question is always the same: "Com creme ou sem creme?" With cream, or without? For decades, that was the entire menu. These days, bola de berlim flavors extend as wide as a foodie’s imagination. The lineup can include everything from classic custard and candy bar fillings to jellied and chunky fruits — and even doughs colored with alfarroba (carob) and beets. So if you’re visiting Portugal and have a limited number of bolas to consume, which ones are worth it?
"Olhá sexy bolinha!"
We ranked our favorites (and least favorites) using galos — a nod to the Galo de Barcelos, Portugal's unofficial mascot and unofficial highest compliment. Five galos is a bola worth crossing the beach for. One galo is a bola you politely decline next time.
Bola de Berlim Flavors, Ranked
🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓 Com Creme (Custard Filling) — The Classic Bola de Berlim
The original, and still undefeated. Crisp sugared crust, soft sweet dough, and that unmistakable yolky custard filling holding it all together. If it's your first bola de berlim, this is the only correct order — partly because it's the best version and partly because you can't judge any of the flavors below without knowing what the benchmark tastes like. Works in any weather, any mood, any hour of the day.
🐓🐓 Sem Creme (Plain, No Filling) — Skip It or Save It for Coffee
Exactly what it sounds like: a plain sugar donut, no filling. Think a bigger, breadier cousin of filhóses or sonhos (don't get a Portuguese person started on which term is correct). It's not bad — it's just missing the entire point of a bola, which is the custard. We'd only reach for this with a coffee or if you're avoiding dairy. Otherwise: why order the one thing here that tastes like something you could get at home?
🐓🐓🐓 Nutella — A Crowd-Pleaser, Not a Standout
This is as you'd expect — classic bola de berlim dough filled with Nutella instead of custard. Coated in granular or powdered sugar, it's a crowd-pleaser, especially with kids. But the texture doesn't do the filling any favors: drier than the traditional custard and it demands a glass of milk or a coffee to wash it down. Great if you love Nutella in literally everything. Otherwise, an easy pass.
🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓 Alfarroba (Carob) — The Algarve's "Chocolate" Bola
You’ll notice that chocolate doesn’t appear in traditional Portuguese sweets, but in the Algarve where carob plants grow abundantly, alfarroba (carob) gives a chocolate-like taste to its regional confections. And that’s exactly where you can find this bola de berlim. Here, the custard filling stays the same, but the dough itself is made with alfarroba, giving it a subtle, chocolate scent. It's the one flavor that rivals the original for us, made special by the fact that you'll really only find it in the Algarve.
🐓🐓🐓 Maçã (Apple) — Better in Winter Than on the Beach
One of the more popular fruit fillings, and not a bad one at that — but the texture is closer to apple pie filling than custard, gel-like rather than creamy, and that's a mismatch with the bola's crisp shell. Though we do appreciate its small apple chunks, delightfully seasoned with cinnamon. This one's better suited to a cold winter afternoon with coffee than a beach towel in August, which knocks this bola down to the middle of the pack.
🐓 Limão (Lemon) — Lacking Texture and Zing
Same complaint as the apple, minus the chunks: a smooth, gel-like filling that misses the custardy consistency that makes the bola work in the first place. Lemon deserves better — it shines as a custard elsewhere (lemon bars, lemon meringue pie) — so we think lemon as a flavor has potential. Unfortunately, if you’re looking for that zing of a filling, this isn’t it. But if you find a version with an actual lemon custard, we need to know immediately.
🐓🐓 Pistáchio (Pistachio) — A Trendy Flavor That Doesn't Hold Up
The pistachio craze finally reached the bola de berlim, and it didn't need to. In theory, pistachio and pastry are a great match. In practice — at least in the one we sampled off a friend's plate — the filling was too thin to hold up the way custard does, leaving a runny donut with an artificial pistachio taste under a hot sun. If you want real pistachio flavor in Portugal, just eat actual pistachios. They're excellent and they don't melt.
🐓🐓🐓🐓 Tangerina (Tangerine) — The Citrus Treasure
We've only ever found this bola once, at a local bakery rather than a beach vendor, and we haven't crossed paths with it since — but we're still looking. Unlike apple or lemon, this is tangerine-flavored custard, which means it keeps the creamy, rich texture that makes the classic work so well. It loses half a galo only because five is reserved for the flavors we'd order on repeat — the original and the alfarroba. Tangerina is the one we'd order the moment we saw it again.
Best Bola de Berlim Flavors: The Short List
Short on time, short on stomach space? These are the best-tasting bolas de berlim in Portugal, in order of priority:
Com creme — non-negotiable, especially if tasting your first-ever bola
Alfarroba — the Algarve exclusive worth planning a stop for
Tangerina — order it on sight; you may not see it again
Everything else is optional. The pistachio is not.
Tried a flavor we missed? Tell us in the comments — or better yet, vote for your favorite below.
Which bola de berlim flavor is your favorite?
Com creme
Sem creme
Nutella
Alfarroba
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