Wander, taste, and savor the moment.

Passport & Plate - Ensaimada

Spain | Friday, March 6, 2015 | 5 photos

Ingredients
500gr of flour
3 eggs
100gr of sugar
1 tablespoon of yeast
3 tablespoons of lard
Powdered sugar for decoration

 

How to prepare this recipe
1) Make a circle with the flour as shown in the picture, and make a hole in the middle with your elbow. After that, add the eggs and the yeast in the hole and spread the sugar over the edges. Mix everything together, add the necessary water to form a consistent dough. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and wait an hour for it to rise and double in size.

2) Lightly flour a board. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough very very thin. Here’s when you add the lard. Apply the lard gently with your fingers. Form the pastry bagel-like, as shown in the pictures. Let it rise for another hour.

3)Heat your oven to 180C degrees. When it doubles in size, bake the “ensaimada” for around 40 minutes. Remove from oven when browned on top. Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes, then sprinkle with powdered sugar and enjoy!

 

The story behind this recipe
Back in the fifties, a twelve year old disembarked in the busy port of Buenos Aires. This Majorcan family was sent to the north of Argentina to work the fields. My grandfather and his family were escaping the terrors of the post-civil war Spain. So scarce were their resources that they had to leave the eldest daughter alone with an aunt in "Palma de Mallorca"
My great grandparents (whom I unluckily never got to meet) were really fond of Spain; such was their love for their motherland that they continuously taught their children and grandchildren lessons from the island. So I grew up with stories of the deep-blue Mediterranean Sea, songs and recipes from old Spain.
In order to keep their culture alive, my great grandmother started various traditions among the Spanish community in the north of my country, which were mainly related with food, of course. And those customs were passed on to me and my siblings. Every summer, we would travel to visit my grandparents and stayed there for about two months. As a weekly assignment, we would spend some hours learning old recipes from my granny, and then was when my love for Ensaimada appeared.
Ensaimada takes me back to my childhood, to those entire summers spent away from mom and dad, but close to my origins. Ensaimada brings me back the memories of all those stories from the Mediterranean which I crave to visit one day. This pastry is probably no high standard cuisine, but I know for sure that more than one might feel related to this story.

Even now, every Sunday morning, I wake up with its scent, the aroma of my beloved Palma de Mallorca.