Found at fairs, select bakeries and the annual Punahou Carnival, malassadas are a Portuguese tradition that has been embraced by everyone in Hawai‘i. The warm, sugar-coated ball of fried eggy dough, heavier than a true doughnut, is not only relished for its mouth-watering goodness but for its nostalgic link to the Islands’ colorful past and ethnic mix.

Herb Carlos of Uncle Herb’s “Da Best Malassadas” provided some historical perspective on the humble beginnings of the malassada. “It started as a religious thing: Malassadas were made on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. They were the last fling before Lent when you were supposed to give up things for 40 days like candies and sweets. Malassadas were a real treat.”

Portuguese cooks used up eggs, butter and lard that they had in their pantry, since Lent also meant abstinence from animal foods. One story about the origins of malassadas tells of some dough that didn’t rise properly when thrown into hot lard and puffing into a light ball.

“Mal means badly, and assada means cooked. Badly cooked or badly done is the literal translation of the word,” said Carlos. “Malassadas are unique to the people who came to Hawai‘i from the Azores, especially from San Miguel. In Portugal, you have the same product with a different name: filhoze.” In Brazil, sonhos (meaning “dreams.”)

It was on Shrove Tuesday in 1953 that Leonard Rego first mixed up a batch of his mother’s malassada recipe and began selling them at the bakery bearing his name. Leonard’s on Kapahulu Avenue built its reputation on malassadas from that day forward and hasn’t quit.

“What’s happened — and the Regos deserve a lot of credit for this — is that the malassada has been rescued from being just a home thing or working-class comfort food,” said Non DeMello of Agnes’ Portuguese Bake Shop in Kailua. “Every time someone opens a malassada stand, people are more aware of them.”

By the thousands

And it seems like everyone is eating malassadas — with a double s, please; a single s in Portuguese is pronounced as a “z” — these days. Count about 165,000 of them at the two-day Punahou Carnival this past February; about 850 a day each from Agnes’, Paradise Malasadas (they spell it with one “s,” as many Island bakeries do) in Hawai‘i Kai and Simply Sweets Bakery on Maui; another 2,000 a day from Honoka‘a’s Tex Drive In on the Big Island and more than 4,000 a weekend at Wal-Mart stores on O‘ahu.

Add in all the holeless doughnuts sold at Leonard’s Bakery and Champion Malassadas (they couldn’t tell us how many they make) plus malassadas from every nook and cranny around town and it’s one heckuva lot of them. Who said we were watching the eggs, butter and fat in our diets?

The numbers are astounding but what’s exciting — though some might disagree — is the make-over that malassadas are getting. Malassadas are going upscale, froufrou and haute.

Take the Mauisada, a trademarked version that Jeff Cabiles makes at his Simply Sweets Bakery in Wailuku, Maui. It is light and soft, not as eggy as the traditional malassada, but enriched with an injection of vanilla custard, haupia, chocolate cream or cappuccino cream. These luscious malassadas are designed to be eaten cool, not hot.

Tex Drive In on the Big Island has been frying up malassadas for more than 30 years for die-hard fans in the Honoka'a area, many of them Portuguese.

When Ada Lamme bought the drive-in from the Texeira family in 1994, she bowed to customer requests and began injecting malassadas with cream, papaya pineapple, waiwi (pronounced “vie-vee,” strawberry guava), chocolate, pepper jelly and strawberry fillings. Residents and visitors alike are in love with them to the tune of at least 2,000 a day.

With ice cream

Then there’s Ron Brun, who’s been making Hawai‘i’s Own Fried Malassada Ice Cream for 14 years. A double-decker ice cream cone that fell into a batch of malassada dough one day evolved into delicious dessert fare: hot, deep-fried dough encasing frozen ice cream.

“They can even be cooked in a toaster oven,” said Brun, who has been selling them to restaurants like Wisteria, Hungry Lion, Wailana Coffee House, St. Louis Drive In and the Hyatt Regency Kaua‘i. And, of course, to Don Ho’s Island Grill, which recently dished out 6,000 of them at Taste of Honolulu, topped with chocolate, caramel and guava sauces and fresh fruits.

Even the traditional Leonard’s malassadas have been transformed into malassada puffs, filled with chocolate, custard and haupia. “People asked for them,” said Leonard Rego Jr., who now runs the family business and sells “got malasada” T-shirts and malassada “beanie babies.”

Blaine Takemoto of the 2-year-old Paradise Malasadas outlet, a truck in the parking lot next to Costco at the Hawai‘i Kai Towne Center, reports they’re just starting to fill their malassadas, too. “We’ve been experimenting with fresh fruit, such as strawberries and azuki beans,” said Takemoto. “We sometimes do a maple syrup dip instead of sugar.”

Changes in exterior coatings have been going on for some time, of course: cinnamon sugar, maybe a sugar glaze and even li hing mui powder.

And the humble fried doughnut is being tinkered with in an even more froufrou way at upscale restaurants, where the usually 50-cent treat can sell for as much as $9 after it’s been transformed into a haute dessert. At the Pineapple Room, pastry chef Mark Okumura serves coffee and doughnuts: a malassada filled with Kona coffee creme brulee accompanied by a coffee parfait.

Oozing chocolate

At Alan Wong’s restaurant, pastry chef Abigail Langlas pipes chocolate ganache (that’s a French chocolate cream) into a hot malassada and serves it alongside a Kona coffee float in an old-fashioned fountain glass. “You have to make it more interesting when someone is paying $7.50 for it,” said Langlas. “It has to be something someone can’t do at home.”

Jean-Marie Josselin at A Pacific Cafe keeps it a little simpler: Just wrap that malassada dough — “They’re just like beignets, the New Orleans doughnut,” said Josselin — around a hunk of chocolate (fresh strawberries are popular, too), twist the dough like dim sum, then deep-fry it to a golden brown. Chocolate oozes out with that first bite.

And what would the French think if they heard about classic egg- and butter-rich brioche dough being transformed into a malassada, a fried doughnut of humble origins? One day, pastry chef Jeff Walters at Chef Mavro restaurant suggested doing just that. “I knew that the richer the dough, the lighter it would be,” said Walters. “Brioche dough is wet and soft; it almost pours out. I freeze it before shaping it.”

Brioche does make a fine malassada, especially with a liliko‘i curd filling, guava coulis and pineapple coconut ice cream accompaniment. Price: $9 and the restaurant suggests a glass of 5-year-old Blandy’s Malmsey Madeira, a dark sweet wine from Madeira, Portugal, to accompany it. The dessert has become so popular that owner/chef George Mavrothalassitis can’t remove it from his menu lineup, which normally changes with the seasons.

Tried and true

Traditionalists, though, are holding on. “Our malassadas taste good; fillings would take away from them,” said Joc Miw, owner of Champion Malassadas, which moved a month ago from its Kalihi origins where 17 years worth of old-fashioned malassadas have found happy customers. “Fillings take away from the quality,” said Miw who traces his familiarity with malassadas back to Macao, the former Portuguese enclave that’s now part of China.

Proud of his own recipe developed through lots of trial and error, Miw uses fresh eggs and evaporated milk and keeps his fryer going all day to satisfy customers who have followed him to his new location on Beretania Street.

“They’re doing sacrilegious things; malassadas aren’t what they used to be,” said Carlos, whose Uncle Herb’s “Da Best” Malassadas appear at Wal-Mart stores in Kunia and Mililani on weekends. “But they’re a good idea. They seem to be popular,” he said, relenting.

Of course, every Portuguese family has its own version of malassadas. Some would say that malassadas are just a piece of Portuguese sweet bread dough that’s been fried instead of baked. Nutmeg is a frequent flavoring as is grated lemon peel, vanilla or a combination. “Cinnamon is very popular on the island of Madeira,” said Carlos.

“Malassadas are always a yeast dough, a temperamental dough that requires time to rise properly.”

Traditional malassadas have an egginess to them and can be a bit heavy, lending to its chewy, almost spongelike texture. Many of today’s newer versions tend to contain fewer eggs and as a result are lighter, more like regular doughnuts or some would say like cake doughnuts.

Wetter doughs tend to produce heavier malassadas that could be a bit greasier; they were often squeezed by hand into hot oil. Newer version doughs are firmer and cut to shape.

Those who are filling malassadas all mention refrigeration as a key step in assuring the proper texture.

And while malassadas were best eaten hot, right out of the fryer, today’s newer breed is designed to survive a little cooling, especially those with creamy fillings.

“Variations on the theme aren’t bad, but Mom wouldn’t approve,” said Carlos. “Old-timers are glad to see us.”

DeMello of Agnes’ agreed. “We’re keeping with the basics. Our biggest compliment is when people say ‘this is the way my vovo (grandmother) made them.’ ”