Paulchens FoodBlog?!

Oh yes, bread again! hehe

And before you wonder: yes, I actually do eat – and cook – other things than bread but since it is so hot here it’s not much cooking here either… mostly some quick food like cheese bread or bread with tuna and cheese… not worth to blog at all… so that’s why there is mostly bread here lately… ;o)

I saw these Ensaïmades at delicious days yesterday and thought these might provide me we perfect for my dinner AND provide me with some yummy treats for my weekly dinners the coming week. I guess they freeze well.. I hope so at least as they are now happily sleeping in my freezer.

Besides I still have some pot of lard lurking in my fridge so it really was the perfect occasion to use it up a little more.

Here is how I made them:

I followed the instructions given quite closely.
Except for the rising times: 1st rising – 45 minutes, 2nd rising – 20 minutes, 3rd rising – 50 minutes -> due to using a big amount of spelt flour and only very little rice flour I needed to cut down rising times, otherwise I would not have been able to do the free form baking.

I only now discovered that I forgot to brush the rolled out circles with softened lard. I will need to make these again to see if there is any difference in taste and texture with and without this additional step.

I ate one only a few minutes after they came out of the oven and it tasted heavenly! Big YUM!

I was curious so I looked them up at wikipedia too to find out something about the tradition and story about this bakeware.
Wiki says:

A lot of variants of the ensaïmada exists, mainly adding some extra ingredient. The most common of them are:

* Llisa (translated from Mallorquí as plain) with no extra ingredient.
* Cabell d’àngel (translated from Mallorquí as angel’s hair), the stringy orange strands found inside pumpkins are cooked with sugar to make a sweet filling that is rolled inside the dough.
* Tallades (translated from Mallorquí as slices) covered with Sobrasada and pumpkin, obtaining a bittersweet taste. It is typical of Lent days.
* Filled with sweet cream, chocolate or turrón paste.
* Covered with apricot.

I think I need to bake them again and try some different variants. :o)