Recipes from Spain

Hello,

This dessert very typical in Catalonia on St John’s day, you can find them on each bakery, pastry shop, take away food store, supermarkets. And you can also find a wide range of them, but my favorite one is this one I show you on this recipe, with custard on top. It’s completely amazing, and it’s not me saying it, the same said my family and my colleagues in work (who also had the choice to taste it). The only con, it takes some time to cook it, but no pain no gain 🙂

Ingredients (to cook 2 of them):

• 500 gr flour
• 50 gr butter
• Corn flour
• 1 litre of milk
• 250 gr sugar
• 4 eggs
• Cinnamon
• Lemon zest
• Baker’s yeast (5gr dry, 15 gr if it’s fresh)
• Vanilla extract
• Pine seeds
• Laminated almonds
• Candied cherries
• Anise

Let’s start heating 400 gr of milk, with a stick of cinnamon and lemon (or orange) zest. Simmer until the milk boils, then maintain in the fire for 2 minutes and let cold. When milk is warm, add 100 gr of flour in a bowl, 5 gr of dry baker’s yeast (if it’s fresh use 15 gr dissolved in milk) mix well and add 100 gr of previously heated milk passing it through a colander. Mix well with a spatula or a wooden spoon, cover with transparent film and let rest all night. Prepare also mix of 2 tablespoons of sugar, a bit of anise and water, if the mix seems too wet add some extra sugar.

Next day add 400 gr of flour in the bowl, 100 gr of sugar, 200 grams of the milk heated the day before and half teaspoon of salt. Mix well everything first in the bowl and then knead it to obtain a soft and silky dough. To knead it I lift it with my hands, turn 90 degrees, dash to the table, drag a bit to me and then with a wrist move fold over itself, you need to repeat these movement for quite a long time, perhaps 8 to 15 minutes until the dough looks silky. Now spread the dough and add over 50 gr of butter in small pieces, the butter should be for some hours out of fridge so it will be easier to integrate in the dough. Once the butter is well integrated in the dough we need to knead again in the same way as before, and again for some quite long time. Once you finished kneading keep the dough on the bowl covered with a transparent film and let rest about 4-5 hours.

You can do the custard now, to prepare it add on a bowl half litre of milk, 100 gr of sugar and 3 egg yolks. To keep away the egg yolks, crash the egg and move the egg yolk from each half part of the egg shell. Add also a tablespoon of corn flour and whisk it with energy. You can also add some ground cinnamon and vanilla extract to make it more tasty. Put this mix on a pot and simmer while stiring with a wooden spoon. Take patience as you will need to stir until it reduces and gets consistent, and this could take about 20 minutes. Cover and let cold.

After resting the dough it’s time to take it out of the bowl and knead it a bit, like a minute, divide the dough in 2 pieces and spread it over a baking paper, with your hand or with a rolling pin. And let rest for 3 hours. Don’t worry if you see the dough too thick and fragile, it will grow again.

Last steps! Paint the surface with a whisked egg and then cover with custard, well in the video I did upside down, as it is easier to paint first. Spread over also the sugar mixed with anise and water, pine seeds, laminated almonds and some candied cherries. Bake them at 400ºF 15 minutes and let cold before eating.

If you try it, you will love this recipe!

Music played in the video (Airport Lounge) was composed by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com), also he is the owner of song’s rights which are released under a CC-BY license.