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.

Shortbread Cookies

Today I will give you the Shortbread Cookies recipe. They are delicious and really easy to prepare.

Ingredients (for around 45 cookies):

• 375 grams of all-purpose Flour
• 250 grams of unsalted Butter at room temperature (I used the salted one and it was really good anyway)
• 90 grams of powdered (confectioners or icing) Sugar
• A pinch of Salt (around 2 grams)

Preparation:

1. Mix in a bowl the flour, the sugar and the salt.
2. Mix the butter, with the electric mixer or by hand until it's smooth and creamy.
3. Add the flour mixture to the butter gradually until it's completely well incorporated.
4. Then, make a ball with the dough and put wrap it in clingfilm. Here there are two ways of do it depending of how you are going to make the biscuits shape.
• If you are using a cookie cutter:
  5. Wrap the dough in the ball shape and chill it for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.
  6. Then, using a rolling pin, flattened it until it is 5mm thick.
  7. Using the cookie cutter cut the cookies and place them on the prepared baking sheet, with parchment paper.
• If you are cutting "slices" of the dough with a knife:
  5. Wrap the dough in a cylinder shape and chill it for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.
  6. Then unwrap it and cut slices of around 5mm thick.
  7. Take each "cookie" and make the round shape with your fingers if you want as it's going to have one flat side (where it has being resting). Place them on the prepared, with parchment paper, baking sheet.

8. Preheat the oven to 170ºC.
9. Bake the cookies for 15 minutes approximately, or until cookies are lightly browned.
10. Cool on a wire rack.

Decoration:

• Something very simple to make your cookies look more professional in mark a fork en them (you should do this before they are cold, as soon as you can after taking them from the oven).
• You also can do Chocolate Dipped Shortbreads. To do that, place finely chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place it over a saucepan of simmering eater. Once the chocolate is melted, remove from the heat and stir with a wooden spoon until it has completely melted and is smooth and glossy. Taking one cookie at a time, dip one end of each cookie in the melted chocolate and place it on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Then leave it to cool in the fridge until the chocolate has hardened.
• Before baking them, make a hollow in the middle of the cookie and add a bit of strawberry jam, for example. Then bake as explained above.

As you can see, apart from the usual shortbread I've prepared some chocolate cookies as well.

OBSERVATIONS:
I recommend you to put the biscuits, once baked and cold, in some kitchen paper so they are not that greasy when eating them.

Torrijas (Spanish French Toast)

This is a typical Spanish sweet made during Lent but also in Christmas time. They are really easy to prepare even though, it takes some time and are delicious so, prepare yourselves to this wonderful treat.

Ingredients:

• 1 French Loaf (better from the previous day)
• 1 liter of Milk (more or less, depending on the type of bread it would absorb a different amount of liquid)
• 1 Cinnamon Stick
• 1 Lemon Rind (only the yellow part)
• 120gr of Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• Olive or Sunflower Oil, for frying
• Cinnamon powder
• Sugar for decorate or Honey with water

Preparation Instructions:

1. Put the milk to boil with the cinnamon stick and the lemon rind in medium heat for 10 minutes. It's possible that it needs more time, until the milk tastes lemon and cinnamon.
2. Add the sugar and let it dissolve completely. Try the milk. It should be very sweet, nearly sickly, so the bread gets enough sweet. Add more sugar if necessary.
3. Leave to cool and strain to take out the lemon rind and the cinnamon stick.
4. Meanwhile, cut the bread in thick slices, around 3cm, and put them in a deep dish.
5. Cover them with the milk until is completely soaked (this is very important and if not they will be dry). It would be enough soaked  when you take the slice of bread and it looks like an sponge.
6. Beat the eggs and coat the bread slices in them. Be careful as the bread will be very soft and it could break. Use the hands or a spoon to help you.
7. Add a lot of oil in a deep pan and when it's very hot, fry the bread slices. Be careful when turning them around (using a spoon and a slotted spoon) so they don't fall to pieces. When golden brown, put them in a dish covered with kitchen paper.
8. Turn around a couple times in kitchen paper to leave it drain all the oil possible.
9. Once they are cold enough to touch them with your hands, there are different ways to finish them:
   • Mix in a plate sugar with cinnamon powder, coat the fried bread in the mixture.
   • In a small saucepan add honey and a spoon of water in low heat and mix. It would be done when the honey is not stick to the spoon. Coat the fried bread in the honey and add cinnamon powder.
   • Make a syrup with sugar and water and coat each fried slice. Add a bit of cinnamon powder.
10. Put the bread in a dish, trying to separate them enough so they don't mash each other.

I made two, sugar and cinnamon and honey, as each person likes something different. Now you can also start preparing your own French toast in the Spanish way, not only for Easter as they are amazing for breakfast around the different seasons.

Above is a photo of how they should look inside. The inside doesn't look like bread but as a cream.