The Dough Doll

The Madeiran Dough Doll dates to before the XIX century, but exactly when remains unknown. As far as what is known, they were integrated only as part of the edible sweets that were so popular amongst youngsters. The dough was prepared in the same way as the bread, composed of flour, water, yeast and egg or saffron to give it the yellow colour. After being stretched and transformed into small rolls, the diverse figures were moulded: “girl doll”,“boy doll”, “couple”, “birds”, and “doves”. They were baked in the same oven as the bread and were decorated with red and blue silk paper strips. The “romeiros” of Our Lady of the Monte would bring them on their neck, suspended on a chord, it was also traditional for the groom to offer a dough doll of a couple arm in arm. Today the Dough Dolls are only decorative products, full of ingenuous creativity, making them inappropriate for consumption.