Farófias are little cloud-like meringues, briefly poached in hot milk, then served with custard and cinnamon. They are similar to the French dessert, Îles flottantes, but have such a long Portuguese history that no one is quite sure whether the two are related. I learned to make these at the Cooking Lisbon school, where they proved to be deceptively light and dangerously easy to eat.
Cinnamon has been widely used in Portuguese sweets since at least the 1500s, when part of modern-day Sri Lanka came under their control, then known as Portuguese Ceylon.