Malasadas at Leonard's Bakery in Honolulu

After poke at Ono Seafood, we were ready for some dessert, so we headed up to Leonard's Bakery for some malasadas. Malasadas are a style of yeast doughnut brought to Hawaii by Portuguese immigrants.



Leonard's Bakery is all about the malasadas. They are made hot and fresh to order, come with a variety of sugar toppings, and can be filled with an assortment of fillings.



The bakery does sell items other than malasadas, however. We tried one of their sausage wraps - a Portuguese sausage encased in Pão Doce (Portuguese sweet bread):



It was tasty, but nothing particularly special.

The malasadas, on the other hand, were very good. Our favorite was the original, plain sugar version:



Hot, fluffy soft dough topped with sugar. Simple, but perfect.

We also tried a malasada "puff" stuffed with custard:



I love anything filled with custard, but in this case it was a bit too overwhelmingly sweet.

To round out our malasada sampling, we tried the cinnamon sugar flavor, which we weren't too fond of, and this version with "Li Hing Mui" (salty dried plum) sugar, which we liked:



But the real winner was the "original" malasada with plain sugar. Sometimes simple is the best.

We had a few left over the next day, and the were pale shadows of their former selves - you really need to eat them hot out of the frier. If you go to Leonard's (and you should!), be sure to only order as many malasadas as you can immediately consume.

Leonard's Bakery
933 Kapahulu Ave.
Honolulu, Hawaii
808-737-5591