Marquesas (Spanish Almond Magdaleines)

Here is a recipe to make Spanish Christmas Sweets. They are called Marquesas and are a kind of Almond Cupcakes, Magdaleines. You can eat them as breakfast, dessert, with a coffee. Hope you like them. Let me know what you think.

Ingredients:

• 100 g iced sugar
• 120 g white sugar
• Grated lemon zest (from 1/2 lemons, only the yellow part)
• 250 g ground almonds
• 40 g self raising flour
• 40 g cornflour
• 10 g baking powder
• 4 eggs
• Iced sugar for decoration 

Preparation:

1. Leave the eggs out of the fridge until they are room temperature (I left them around 6 hours).
2. In a bowl, mix together the flour, cornflour, baking powder, almond, iced sugar, and lemon zest.
3. Put water in a pan and a suitable bowl inside (so the bowl gets warm). It needs to be at a temperature that you don’t get burn (around 37ºC). At this point, leave the bowl above the hot water but take it out of the source.
4. Add the eggs and the white sugar and whisk with the electric mixer for 6 minutes. You’ll see that the mixture start growing and gets whiter.
5. Take the bowl off the pan and continue whisking for 6 more minutes.
6. Once that’s done, gradually add the almond mixture into the eggs mixture and try to mix it until you have a well-mixed batter. Try to mix it by hand and quite slow so the air in it doesn’t go, it will make your cupcakes more spongy.
7. Preheat your oven to 200 ºC. Prepare your muffin tin by greasing it or lining with muffins liners.
8. Fill your muffin tin or liners 3/4 full of cupcake batter.
9. Once the oven is at 200 ºC, reduce the temperature to 180 ºC and bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden.
10. Dust with icing sugar and leave the cupcakes cool on a wired rack.

Snickerdoodles

The Snickerdoodles are cinnamon biscuits really soft and delicious. If you do some research you'll find different ways to prepare them, flat or round (the ones I prepared). That depends on your taste.

As you can see below, the preparation is very easy and quick. I've prepared the original version but you can add them a bit of honey, chocolate, orange, etc. Other day I'll post the chocolate version, you'll have to wait a little bit!!!

So, here it goes, photo and recipe.

Ingredients (around 75 biscuits):

• 280 grams all purpose Flour
• 125 grams Batter, room temperature
• 80 grams Sugar
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 3/4 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground Nutmeg (optional)
• 1 pinch Salt

Coating:

• 4 teaspoons Sugar
• 2 teaspoons Cinnamon

Preparation:

1. In one bowl add the flour, salt and nutmeg and whisk them together. Reserve.
2. In a different bowl beat the butterand sugar until you have a creamy mixture.
3. Add the vanilla extract and the egg and beat well.
4. Add the flour mixture slowly and beat until you have a smooth dough. You will need to knead the dough by hand when all the flour mixture is added. Knead until the dough is soft and separates from the sides of the bowl perfectly.
5. Pre heat the oven to 200º C.
6. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
7. For the coating: In a large shallow bowl mix together the sugar and cinnamon.
8. Take small pieces of dough and form small round balls of around 2,5 centimeters.
9. Roll the balls in the cinnamon sugar mixture and place them on the prepared baking sheets, leaving 2 centimeters between them.
10. Bake the biscuits for about 10-13 minutes, or until their surface start to be cracked.
11. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

These biscuits can last about one week if stored in an airtight container, at room temperature, if you don't eat all of them at once.

Grilled Lobster Monkfish

Today I'm posting a Monk fish recipe. As you can see this dish doesn't need much work as you'll prepared grilled. It's very soft, juicy and has a very natural flavor.

Ingredients (for 2):

• 1 Monk fish Tail
• Olive Oil
• Salt
• Sweet Paprika
• Mayonnaise or Tartar Sauce

Preparation:

1. Wash the monk fish and dry it with a piece of kitchen towel.
2. Put some olive oil in your hands and smear the monk fish with it.
3. Do the same with the salt and the paprika (to give it the lobster color).
4. Once done, heat the griddle pan (without oil, it's enough with the amount we put on the fish), when medium hot place the fish on the griddle pan and cook for about 3 minutes on each side (be careful to avoid burning the paprika).
5. Let stand for about five minutes before serving. The monk fish needs to be perfectly done. If you have a thermometer, look for an internal temperature of 145 degrees.

As you can see from the photo above, you can have it with mayonnaise or tartar sauce. As a side dish you can have whatever you prefer, I put a simple lettuce, onion and tomato salad.